Longwood school site sale could help fund new college

County Meath VEC is seeking to have the existing site of St Fintina"s Post-Primary School in Longwood re-zoned and proposes to then sell the site to help finance the building of a planned new 500-pupil secondary school in the village. Last month, the Meath Chronicle revealed that plans for the new school had been halted after the Department of Education issued a letter to Meath VEC asking it not to conclude negotiations on the purchase of a 10-acre site for the school, on the Enfield Road. The Enfield Road site had been identified, a purchase price agreed and the land was rezoned by Meath County Council. Sanction to conclude the sale was awaited when the letter from the Department of Education was received, to the disappointment of all involved. However, Meath VEC has vowed to keep pushing the project and advance it as quickly as possible. A meeting was held with staff last week to discuss how to progress the building project but also how to make the most out of the facilities that the school currently has. Meath VEC CEO Peter Kierans explained that a submission had been made to Meath County Council and that they are proposing to have their site re-zoned and to sell the site to help finance the new school. Mr Kierans and VEC education officer Seamus Ryan recently met with staff and Mr Kierans said they had a 'very good meeting' at which they had discussed the building project and how to most effectively deliver the programme and progress the building plan, as well as addressing day-to-day issues at the school. He said the school had many attractive features and that because of St Fintina"s size with 40 students in each year, there were never more than 25 to a class. Mr Kierans said that all subjects were being offered at honours Leaving Certificate level by interacting with other centres in a distance learning arrangement for certain subjects. Students would be linked with the other classroom through an internet and webcam arrangement. He said they were looking at the possibility of making St Fintina"s a model IT school for small schools and are looking at providing laptops to every first year students for a semi-purchase fee. Mr Kierans described the meeting as very progressive and said they had brought details of the plans for the new school and showed the staff how the VEC is very committed to advancing the new school project. 'It is going to happen. It is a case of keeping it on the burner all the time,' he said. Staff agreed the meeting in relation to the future development of St Fintina"s had been very positive. At present, more than half of the school"s students are being accommodated in prefabs on a confined two-acre site in Longwood. The school does not have any playing pitches and has to move off-site for football matches. St Fintina"s is currently full and has 160 students but does not have an assembly hall.