Deputies are ‘offering to sign’ Herm School requete
A REQUETE calling for Education, Sport & Culture to reconsider its decision to close Herm School for a year is likely to be lodged next week.
David De Lisle said the draft was currently with the law officers.
‘I’m hoping to have it done and dusted this week,’ he said.
‘I just have to make sure the wording is correct.’
Requetes require seven States members to support them and Deputy De Lisle was confident he would get the backing.
‘People are offering their signatures. There’s no problem with that,’ he said.
He was not prepared to disclose the names of any supporters until they had signed.
ESC is proposing to close Herm School on a trial basis and have its current four pupils come to Guernsey for their education.
The requete has been given the backing of Herm’s leaseholder, Starboard Settlement chairman John Singer, who said he would fight tooth and nail to have the school reinstated.
The next sitting of the States at which the requete could be debated is at the end of September and Deputy De Lisle said he was aware that this would be after the start of the school year, and the trial of bringing children to the island from Herm would already have begun.
‘I don’t know how I can stop that,' he said. 'My call is to reinstate what was there.’
He accepted that, if successful, change might not happen until the end of the winter term, particularly since the Herm School building has been emptied.
‘My understanding is that they’ve whipped out all the technology from the school, but they’re keeping the school building while they’re undertaking this trial, but the fact is they’ve already begun destroying the school system.’
