COLÁISTE RÁITHÍN NEW SCHOOL BUILDING FOR 2014

EXPRESSION OF SUPPORT

Since 1994, management, staff and parents in Coláiste Ráithín have been working on the relocation of Coláiste Ráithín to new premises. Seventeen years on, Coláiste Ráithín is still located in the same situation – on 2 separate sites, in prefabricated, unsuitable buildings with no recreational, leisure or sports facilities.  Despite this, the school is one of the best schools in the county and the pupils continue to thrive academically.

The pupils, teachers and staff of Coláiste Ráithín deserve a new school building that reflects the commitment, aspirations and achievements of the school community.

Most second level schools in the area have recently received significant investment and have been substantially upgraded, including Presentation College Bray, Loreto Bray, Coláiste Chill Mhantáin and Coláiste Craobh Abhann Kilcoole. In 2014, the Department of Education (DES) will open a brand new state-of-the-art second level school, on a 12-acre site in Blacklion, 4 miles from Coláiste Ráithín. In order to compete with this new school and the other recently upgraded schools in the area, Coláiste Ráithín must be given similar investment, and a new, state-of-the-art school building be built and open that same year, 2014. 

As a community we want:

New Coláiste Ráithín school building built and opened by September 2014

For seventeen years, the school community have worked with the patron body (VEC) and the DES to identify a suitable new site in Bray for Coláiste Ráithín. Confidence is very low that the only suitable site with planning permission in Bray (old Bray golf club lands), will progress in the short/medium term due to the ongoing logistical problems around the provision of access and services and ownership of the site.

In order that a new school building for Coláiste Ráithín be open by September 2014, we request the following:

• all outstanding issues regarding the Bray site be closed off by 1st quarter 2012.
  

• if all outstanding issues regarding the Bray site can be resolved, we request that plans progress immediately to provide a new school  building for Coláiste Ráithín on that site to open in September 2014;
  

or

• if these issues cannot be resolved positively by 1st quarter of 2012, that the DES and VEC agree to relocate Coláiste Ráithín in its entirety to the Blacklion site on a shared basis(sharing the same site but separate schools), to open in September 2014.
  

A relocated Coláiste Ráithín in its entirety includes staff, ethos and existing policies, including its current policies of admission for all its feeder schools.