Divestment of National Schools stalled in North Dublin due to parental objection

"Perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of families voted against divestment and 17% in favour. 56% voted in favour of changing to a system where girls and boys could be educated together, with 42% against."

I agree if the figures above were in favour of divestment the author of the article would have been praising the process as a success, instead of lamenting its rejection.

If Educate Together school was just an ordinary school minus religion it would be a more popular sell.

It's much more than that though, everything about the ethos changes and there will likely be differences with regard to homework, uniforms, how the teacher is addressed and how behaviour is managed.

Many ET schools are exceptionally liberal and this is not to everyone's taste.

That is as may be, but ET wasn't the alternative offered by the divestment process.

In response to the rather ill informed comments on ET.

For context I work at senior level in third level and my professional experience involves evaluation of education programmes.

My children have been through ET primary and secondary. The curriculum is the national curriculum They study facts the six main religions. They mark all cultural and religious dates respectfully.

My experience is quality learner focused teaching where the focus is on ensuring each child reaches their potential and is instilled with respect for themselves and others.

How on earth in this day and age people believe referring to a teacher by their first name reduces respect, actually makes me fear for the future.

Behavior in my experience is on par with every other school in the neighborhood. They focus on restorative justice. Natural consequences for deliberate actions. All children are involved in agreeing their class golden rules.

I am delighted my children have been given a great education and have benefited from been constantly supported to be themselves to be proud of their achievements and how to address their challenges.

I do hope we will have a future where everyone has the education of choice available to them.

well thats utter nonsense.

What "choice" do you think most people have when choosing schools?

Im sure you will be providing evidence to back up "majority of parents already have their education of choice available to them"

What’s nonsense is in your own efforts to confirm your own prejudices, you took what I said out of context, or overlooked it. Whichever the case, what I actually said was -

The divestment process in this case failed simply because the majority of parents already have their education of choice available to them, and the minority who don’t shall simply continue to be deprived of an education suitable for their children’s needs.

As for evidence to support my opinion, well there were three schools involved -

Naíscoil Íde

The facilitator's report states that "Parents indicated that the lack of a clearly worked out plan for the three schools meant that parents didn't have a clear proposal to consider. As a result, they were unwilling to take "a shot in the dark" and so plumped for retention of the status quo".

Scoil Áine

Perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of families voted against divestment and 17% in favour.

And Scoil Assaim -

Commenting on a meeting for parents at Scoil Assaim the facilitator said: "There was opposition to the notion that the majority who wanted to continue with Catholic education should facilitate the wishes of what might be a substantial minority to have a multi-denominational school in Raheny".

All cited from the article in the opening post.

Three schools, but one could not be made non-denominational while the two others retain a Catholic ethos? Would that not be a fairer spread and provide for both the families who would want to have their children educated via religion and those who don't?

How many of these families are at the local mass regularly on a Sunday? Few I'd imagine going by the trend away from attendance in recent decades.

Seems to me the problem is that the divestment process is cr*p.

Citizens assembly is hardly representative of people, especially people who have kids that are going to school or will be soon going to school.

What parent has free weekends to go to Dublin to sit at an assembly ?

My child is headed for an ETB second-level school soon, and I am a bit worried that there may be all that "woke" nonsense.

I am not too worried, though, it's not in Ranelagh, or somewhere like that, so the nonsense should not have infiltrated that far yet.