Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 11 May 2022
175. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Education if her attention has been brought to the situation facing a school (details supplied) which, since amalgamating with two other schools in the area, has lost its DEIS status; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23771/22]
View answerThe school referred to by the Deputy was established in September 2021 and followed from a previous amalgamation which took place involving a DEIS school in September 2016. When a DEIS school amalgamated with a school that was not in the DEIS programme, consideration was generally given to the amalgamated school retaining some of the DEIS supports for a finite period of time post amalgamation. The purpose of allowing continuation of limited supports for a finite period post amalgamation is to support those students who entered first year at the time the school had DEIS status, until they complete their post primary cycle. This was communicated to the schools involved at the time of the amalgamation. Schools are generally given notice by my Department ahead of the final year of retaining those supports.
This process described above to facilitate amalgamations, whereby a school can retain some DEIS supports post amalgamation for a finite period of time, is separate to the identification of schools for the DEIS programme.
The Deputy will be aware that I recently announced that from next September the DEIS programme will be extended to an additional 310 schools. 37 schools will also benefit from additional supports following reclassification. This recent announcement followed a process whereby schools were identified for inclusion in the programme through the refined DEIS identification model which is an objective, statistics based model. The DEIS identification model has been applied fairly and equally to all schools. All amalgamated schools were included in the application of the DEIS identification model. Where a school, post amalgamation, has a concentrated level of students from disadvantaged areas such that it meets the criteria for DEIS status under the refined DEIS identification model, the school would be included in the DEIS programme. In the case of the school referred to by the Deputy, it was not included in the list of schools most recently announced for inclusion in the DEIS programme.
Schools which were not satisfied with the outcome following the application of the DEIS identification model to their school enrolment data have now been provided with the opportunity to make an appeal. Circular 0019/2022, outlining the details of the DEIS appeals process, was published on the 30th March 2022 by my Department and is available at www.gov.ie/en/circular/7e7ca-deis-identification-2022-appeals-process-for-schools/. All schools were notified of the appeals process. The school referred to by the Deputy has submitted an appeal which is currently being processed.
When all appeals have been processed, schools will be informed of the outcome in writing by my Department. It is my Department’s intention that schools will be provided with the outcome promptly to allow schools time to plan for the 2022/23 school year.
