Jessie Goldie of Kennedy Street nursery school in Townhead was the third headteacher in recent weeks to be suspended by the council pending checks to ensure that the numbers on the school roll-call tally with the numbers in attendance. Her suspension was promptly followed by a fourth.
Kennedy Street nursery school is currently earmarked for closure at the end of June. It has 40 places and could cater for 40 children in the morning and 40 children in the afternoon. The council's latest figures suggest that it is under-used, with 18 children attending in the morning and 21 during the afternoon, but it will not be possible to confirm whether these numbers are accurate until the investigation is concluded.
The recent trail of suspensions started with allegations that Mount Florida primary school on the south side of the city had 17 additional pupils on its list. 'Ghost' pupils could attract substantial additional state funding, and it has been alleged that two additional teaching posts, worth up to 50,000, were granted to the school on the base of its declared pupil total.
Mount Florida's headteacher, Lesley Dalgleish, was suspended pending an investigation, and the council set about making a stringent series of checks to ensure that there were no irregularities on the roll-calls at other primary schools.
The trawl across the city led to the suspension of a second headteacher, Maire Whitehead of St Mirin's Primary School, also in south Glasgow, while the council looked more closely into claims that this school had nine additional pupils on its books.
Also last week, a spokeswoman for Glasgow city council said Williamina MacDonald, headteacher of Dowan Hill Primary in the west end of the city, had been suspended pending an investigation into 'alleged administrative irregularities', also to do with the roll call. 'We hope this is the end of it,' the spokeswoman said.
