Parents who spent years campaigning to save a Carse of Gowrie school open have hit out at plans to close it.
Perth and Kinross Council education chiefs say dwindling pupil numbers at Abernyte Primary School mean it is no longer sustainable.
A report for next week’s lifelong learning committee will ask councillors to approve a statutory consultation on closing the school.
Members will be told the current roll of six pupils is predicted to be the highest in the next four years and that youngsters will benefit from being moved three and a half miles to Inchture Primary.
Parents had asked the council to consider extending the catchment area to give parents from Inchture and Longforgan the option of sending their children to Abernyte, but the local authority said nobody took up the offer.
Abernyte parent council chairman Gerard McGoldrick said the process was poorly handled since parents of pre-school aged children were not asked.
“We are deeply disappointed with the recommendation,” he said.
“We feel the process the council followed was fundamentally flawed.
“Of course if your child is happy and settled at a school you won’t want to move them.
“If they had considered families whose children are not at school yet I think the response would have been very different.”
The plans form part of 10-year school estate review, which also involves the closure of Balhousie School and construction of the new Bertha Park High School in Perth.
Mr McGoldrick said the council would need to accommodate more children in Carse of Gowrie as more homes are built.
“Inchture is going to get full and they are going to have to spend a lot of money working on it,” he said.
“If they looked at the long term instead of short they would see it makes much more sense to keep Abernyte open and give parents a choice because we already have a school with plenty of space and a fantastic head teacher.
“We are all quite upset and angry and I really do think it’s the wrong decision. When villages lose their schools the heart is ripped out of them.”
Abernyte is graded category B condition, meaning it is fit for purpose but starting to deteriorate. It is thought moving the children to Inchture will cost around £18,000 a year, leaving a saving of around £10,000 compared to keeping Abernyte open.
Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, lifelong learning convener Caroline Shears said: “The school estate review we are undertaking requires detailed consideration of a range of factors, including the condition and suitability of school buildings, occupancy levels and educational benefit for pupils.
“We have to be thorough in our approach and particularly in relation to rural schools. This has very much been the case for Abernyte where there has been further assessment of the catchment area change proposal put forward by the school’s parent council.
“The findings of that further assessment suggest strongly, however, that making such a change would not have the impact required to sustain the school roll in the long-term.”
