Views on new Templecarrig admission policy

Is there a reason why the thread on Templecarrig secondary school changing their admissions policy to favour CoI kids, has been locked?

When they were bidding to be the patron of this new State funded school, the C of I said that they would give priority to kids attending local schools, but they refused to guarantee that there would be no religious discrimination when further prioritising within that group of local kids.
The other two patron bodies involved did give this guarantee.
A lot of people and some local politicians supported the patron on the basis of wishful thinking, without looking at the facts as they were presented.
We even had this discussion on boards.ie which unfortunately predicted what could happen.

So now we have discrimination built into each category to ensure that kids of one religion are catered for before any places are allocated to anyone else.

Cat 0
Priority places are reserved for children of staff, management and clergy, regardless of whether they reside locally. These are by definition C of I. The siblings policy means that a family can move away from the area and still have a place reserved for any future siblings, thereby displacing some random local kid.

Cat 1
Places for local kids but with religious discrimination built-in, as predicted.


Cat2
12 places are to be reserved every year for kids of the right religion who specifically live outside the area.

What I find most interesting about it is, they also intend to use the admissions policy to force the many "lapsed protestants" around the town out of their beds on a Sunday morning, and down to the church.
When places get scarce, they will have to produce an Active Parish Affiliation Note, not just a Baptismal Cert;

...there would be a real risk that members of the local Church of Ireland community with an active parish affiliation could be excluded from the school through a process of random selection.The Board felt that this exclusion would undermine support for the school from that part of the local community that is actively affiliated to the Church of Ireland parishes and this would have negative implications for the establishment and development of the school within the ethos on which it is founded.The grounds for claiming the priority that have been introduced are both specific and exacting and require applicants to meet certain objective criteria to demonstrate active parish affiliation. This in turn is subject to subsequent certification for the School Board by the Rector of the parish concerned.
These grounds differ substantially from the grounds currently used to determine priority for entry to some national schools under the patronage of the Church of Ireland, such as presentation of a baptismal certificate. The purpose of this approach is to ensure that those
parents and children claiming active parish affiliation have a real and meaningful belonging to the relevant parish and an active involvement in parish life.

And all this using public money, as the school was built by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer pays all the salaries and running costs, including "chaplaincy" costs.

FirstIn wrote: »

Where are all these COI children going to come from? You'd need nearly every one of the 7 local schools to be full with COI kids.
It's unfounded statements like that which add to this scaremongering.

120 places, so that's 4 classes.
12 places (so far) reserved for protestants coming from outside the area, plus another say 6 places for the offsping of the teachers. So that's half a class full already before any locals get a look in.
Two classes each year from 2 local COI primary schools.
That leaves one and a half classes for everyone else to fight over.

Even if only 3 pupils are the offspring of teachers, staff and clergy, when added to the 12 brought in from outside the area, that is still half a class. There may well be a few protestants in the Gaeilscoil and the ET school.

What you have to remember is that Templecarrig is not like East Glendalough Secondary school or St. Patricks National school. Those properties were built and are owned by the Church of Ireland.

Templecarrig school is being built by the State and will be owned by the State. It got funding because of the expanding population of Greystones. The COI is being allowed to manage it.

As an analogy, suppose I lent my car to a neighbour for a while, free of charge. Then one day I say to him "Can I use the car next Saturday, I need it to collect something"
He says "Ask me again on Saturday morning, and if I'm not using it, then I'll let you borrow it"

The problem is not really about this or that admission policy, it's about the fact that the school will be too bl*ody small.
The question the board should be addressing is where can they fit extra classrooms/portacabins on the site to cater for the pent up demand.

d2ww wrote: »

The problem is not really about this or that admission policy, it's about the fact that the school will be too bl*ody small.

Its more than that to me.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is the first time in the history of the State that any state-owned school, or a publicly owned entity of any kind, has blatantly peddled an openly discriminatory and sectarian policy. Its a new low.

I have no problem with privately owned schools whether they be COI, RC or Muslim teaching their own thing and using their facilities to encourage people into their religion.
But the State has no business sponsoring any religion, and any state owned school should be 100% free of discrimination whether on the grounds of race, religion or gender.

Wolfe Tone, himself from a protestant background, would turn in his grave to see that the basic principles of the Republic, that is Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for all citizens, have been thrown aside in the 21st century.

potpourri wrote: »

Why was support from parents in the seven feeder schools obtained on the basis that religion would not be a factor?..

If they got the patronage under false pretences, then then maybe the patronage should be withdrawn. But IMO they "allowed" people to think there would be no religious discrimination without actually commenting on the matter, which is slightly different.
They did say repeatedly that kids enrolled in the named local primary schools would all have equal highest priority. Cat 1 was supposed to be the highest priority.
They have reneged on this by giving a higher priority to 12 handpicked places from Cat 2 (protestants living outside the area) bumping them up ahead of Cat 1 (local schools).
Also by introducing a new Cat 0 (staff and clergy) at an even higher priority to Cat 1.


Also there is the possibility that a sectarian admissions policy in a state owned school may well be illegal under the Constitution.
Basically, to resolve these anomalies, either the new admissions policy should be withdrawn or the patronage revoked.

zanador wrote: »

Happens all over the place here - every faith based primary school in Greystones works on this principle.

Privately owned, not State owned.