A Leas-Chathaoirleach, I wish to thank you for allowing me to raise this important matter on the Adjournment and to state that the staffing arrangements at St. John's infant's national school are certainly very unsatisfactory at the moment. This mainly arises because of the arrangements that were entered into earlier in the year between the Minister for Education and the INTO, who agreed that the number of enrolments on 30 September 1987 would be used as the basis for calculating the number of staff in the various national schools. The alteration of the date for appointment from 30 June to 30 September of the previous year will result in the loss of two teachers from St. John's infant's national school. This is a 50 year old parish school and draws many of its children from the most disadvantaged domestic backgrounds. For the families living in this area there has always been a tradition at the school of an all year round intake of four year olds as there are no State funded pre-school facilities in the area available to them. Any reduction in the number of staff would lead to a serious curtailment of this service.
Social workers in the local authorities have indicated in writing to the Minister that many deprived children are enrolled at the school and this verifies the fact that the school and its teachers provide a very secure and caring atmosphere for many of the disadvantaged children in the parish and help them with their various needs. They are many families in need living in this area. In fact, the recent construction by Kilkenny County Council of a halting site in the area for travelling people will add further to the pressures on the school to provide a specific type of education for those people in order to integrate them into the national and primary education system.
The district inspector of the Department recently sent a strong recommendation to the Department of Education that the present staffing levels at this school should remain unchanged. This recommendation arose principally out of a survey carried out in the parish to identify the type of family who send their children to the school and to see what special measures the Department would need to take in order to maintain and improve the level of education and staffing levels at the school.
As I have already stated the school has a long tradition of accepting travelling children and it is worth nothing that a good number of children attending the school are affected by different family circumstances. For example, 62 families with children attending this school live in what we would classify as disadvantaged housing. Twenty-five pupils come from single parent backgrounds and 51 from separated parent backgrounds. The parents of 76 children attending the school are unemployed. There are 11 children presently under assessment by local health board clinics; 12 are awaiting assessment and there are 36 disturbed and disruptive children in the school.
This school, in fact, receives a Kilkenny Corporation grant each year to provide free school meals comprising bread, jam, milk and tea and 99 children avail of this facility. This is clear evidence of the disadvantaged backgrounds of the families we are talking about. The number of children who need remedial education at the school is 55 at present. The school shares a remedial teacher with two other schools in the same parish. Under this arrangement the remedial teacher attends at the school for approximately two hours each week which means that only ten children can avail of this limited remedial attention and this is totally inadequate to cater for the needs of the children I am speaking about.
When one looks at other parishes and schools in the same city of Kilkenny one will see that a different staffing relationship applies and much more emphasis is placed on remedial education. In fact, there is one parish in the centre of Kilkenny city which has the same number of schools and the same number of pupils but has three remedial teachers. There is an imbalance there. The case to be made for St. John's is overwhelming when one considers the disadvantage it faces vis-à-vis other parishes and other schools in the same city. The community living within the catchment area of the school is growing all the time. At present there are approximately 1,532 houses in the area and a survey of baptismal records by the parish priest indicates that that trend is likely to continue for many years to come.
The kernel of the problem, as I stated earlier, is that the number of enrolments on 30 September 1987 will be used as the basis for calculating the number of staff. The number of pupils at St. John's infant's national school continued to increase throughout 1988; because 30 September 1987 was taken as enrolment date the school lost two teachers. In fact, by changing the date for appointment and retention of teachers in national schools from the various dates I have spoken about, a great disservice has been done to the children in this school. On 12 October 1987, 284 children were present and that would have assured the retention of an eighth teacher. By March 31, 306 children were on the roll which would have assured the retention of a ninth teacher.
There is a clear need for the Minister to initiate a complete review of the staffing levels of this school to take account of the disadvantaged nature of the family backgrounds of the children attending the school and to provide assistance under the disadvantaged category for the purpose of staffing, or under the special education heading. The Minister would be the last to want a situation in which the arrangements agreed by the Department of Education and the INTO last May induced hardship. Obviously difficulties might arise as a result of any agreement but the Minister has within his ambit some flexibility in order to smooth out problems.
I have listened to a number of cases being made by national schools but the best case I have heard is the one put forward by St. John's infant's national school. I was unwilling to put down a motion on behalf of any of the other schools because they did not have a case. On analysing various cases throughout the county of Kilkenny this case is the only one in which genuine hardship is being experienced. I hope the Minister will carry out a review with a view to maintaining the level of staffing that is essential in order to maintain the level of education in the school and to recognise the unique and special difficulties of this school over and above schools in the catchment area.
