Poll station protest: The board of management in a small school in Co Monaghan has decided to highlight the anger of parents at teacher cuts by not opening the school for polling on Friday.
Knocknagrave National School, five miles from the Monaghan Border with Tyrone, has been told it is losing one of its two teachers, even though it will have more students next September than it has at present.
At the moment the principal and one other teacher are educating 14 pupils from junior infants to sixth class, and the prospect that just one will be left to teach 18 children has been met with "utter sadness" by the board of management.
Its spokesman, Mr Paul Connolly, said that when the Department of Education did a headcount of students last September, the school had only 10 pupils, but one month later the number grew to 13.
The school believed it needed 12 pupils to meet the criteria for a second teacher and appealed the Department's decision.
However, last Friday evening they were told that it had been unsuccessful and from next September they would only qualify for one teacher.
Mr Connolly said the board of management has serious concerns about the health and safety implications of having a single teacher in charge of the education of so many children.
"We were utterly sad at the decision, and our decision to withdraw the school from use as a polling station was a very hard one to make but the board felt it was the only way we had to protest," he said.
The Department of Education confirmed that the enrolment figures for September 2003 showed there were 10 pupils.
A representative said that for a school to qualify to retain a second teacher it would have to have 50 pupils.