Opting out rejected by parents anxious about leaking flat roof: Colne Park High's experience of trying to opt out of local authority control shows that many parents remain unconvinced of the benefits. Donald MacLeod reports

Perhaps it was the flat roof factor, David King reflected ruefully. As head teacher of Colne Park High School, in Colne, he had been arguing strongly to opt out of Lancashire county council's control.

Roger Brown, the chairman of governors, campaigned equally passionately against grant-maintained status. Parents and staff were divided. Feelings ran high on both sides as the issue was debated at meetings and in the local press for months.

Last week parents voted decisively against opting out - 69 per cent to 31 per cent in a high turnout. Mr King, Mr Brown and the governors are now attempting to work together again and let the dust settle.

Colne Park's flat roof - 30 years old and in urgent need of replacement - was probably not uppermost in the mind of John Patten, Secretary of State for Education, when he oversaw yesterday's launch of his Education Bill to 'build on the success of the growing number of schools which have opted to become self-governing'. But it is exactly the sort of local issue that has proved a stumbling block to the Conservative aim of encouraging more and more schools to opt for grant maintained status. In some places the flat roof factor has encouraged parents to vote in favour of opting out in the hope of more generous funding than they get from their local authority.

Not in Colne. For one thing, as Mr King noted, the parents' ballot took place against a background of black Wednesday and the pit closures row, when the Government's credibility was extremely low. 'Parents said 'If they are doing that to the miners, what will they do with our school? At least with the county council there will be some protection'.'

And Lancashire promised to spend large sums of money on the school roof over the next five years.

The local Labour and Liberal Democrat parties combined to oppose opting out by telephone canvassing and leafleting parents. The school governors had voted 11 to 3 to hold a ballot on grant-maintained status but the minority led by Mr Brown, a Labour councillor for Pendle District who has two children at the school, successfully contested the election of three parent governor places and then co-opted three 'antis' on to the governing body. Mr Brown became chairman. 'It didn't come to blows, but it was pretty heated,' he recalled.

'There was some very strong feeling generated locally, but there wasn't bad feeling,' Mr King said. 'The 'antis' were much better organised and powerful. We were politically naive about the whole thing.'

Although the school's budget would have increased from pounds 1.6m to around pounds 1.95m under grant- maintained status, he said that the change would not have meant a lot of extra money coming to the school. Mr King wanted to use existing funds more effectively; he reckoned the school would be able to save more than pounds 5,000 a year on cleaning, for instance.

Colne Park is popular and oversubscribed. Mr King said he failed to convince local people that it would still be 'their school' under grant-maintained status. They were also suspicious of his desire to admit children from elsewhere in the borough. Selection was another bogey. 'I am in comprehensive education because I believe in it profoundly, yet people kept telling me that I wanted a grammar school,' Mr King said.

Mr Brown believes that parents' suspicions about finance, including what would happen to the flat roof, finally clinched the vote. Mr Patten still has some persuading to do, it seems.

(Photograph omitted)