Devenish community members said they were blind-sided when they heard the town’s primary school was potentially facing closure.
The Ensign understands there are no new enrolments for next year, and the school’s remaining two students would be leaving at the end of 2022.
However, the Department of Education has confirmed that, at this stage, no decision to close the school has been made.
Nor has it received a request from the school council to close the school.
“Decisions on school closures and mergers are initiated at the local school level by the school council,” A Department of Education and Training spokesperson said.
However, local people fear the writing is on the wall after an extraordinary meeting of the school council took place last week, where a motion to close the school was discussed.
Devenish resident Chris Gregory said there had been a community meeting earlier in the year, but he felt the severity of the situation had not been communicated since.
“I’ve been here in Devenish, off and on, all my life, for 68 years,” Mr Gregory said.
“There wasn’t really any notification to the town that this was a possibility.
“If we had more notice we could have tried to help the school get new students.
“We’re worried that we’re too late now.
“If we’d had time to develop a plan to keep it open, that is what we would have done.”
Mr Gregory said he understood the school council would make any final decision over it’s potential closure.
"We fear the decision has already been made, but we just don’t know,” he said.
“Id like to see it left open for another 12 months, to give the community time to form a plan and try to save it.
“Time is all we want. That and for proper consultation with the community.”
Mr Gregory said the big issue was there were no other schools close to Devenish.
“Which means no young family will want to live here,” he said.
“The school has been going for 147 years and it has had a couple of lean years in that time, where it’s been low on students.
“Even though we had two students enrolled last year it was a shock to hear it might be closing.”