Faxe council agreement sets closure of Terslev village school

A budget agreement in Faxe Municipality sets the closure of Terslev School after the current school year, despite protests from parents, DR reports.

The school in southern Zealand has 58 pupils from reception class to sixth grade. A majority of the municipal council says it is too expensive to operate and wants to use the funds to improve standards at the municipality’s other schools.

Lotte Langgaard Andersen, who lives in Terslev and has a daughter in third grade at the school, said she had hoped politicians would find another solution. Her son is in his final year at the nursery that shares a site with the school.

“It is such a shame, because this school can do something different from the others because it is small,” she said.

Andersen said the school had helped her daughter overcome school refusal and could include children who needed additional support. “They can actually include and accommodate them, and there is time for them,” she said.

Faxe Mayor Mikkel Dam of the Liberal Alliance said no one considered the closure a good solution, but that no alternative had been proposed. He said falling pupil numbers meant the school was not viable financially, academically or as a workplace.

The municipality’s schools also perform below the national average. Figures released before the budget agreement was signed showed that 17.1 per cent of ninth-grade pupils in Faxe Municipality did not pass Danish and mathematics in this summer’s final exams.

Pupils from Terslev will be offered places at Nordskovskolen or Sofiendalskolen in Haslev. The budget agreement has been signed by 18 of the council’s 25 members and will now go through an eight-week consultation period before final adoption.