Sir, – We have deep concerns about the handling of the issues around the governing board at Richmond School.

We note these concerns are also in freefall circulation amidst the local communities served by the school.

1) North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) is handling these issues extremely badly and local communities have lost complete confidence in its capability to chart a way forward that rescues the reputation of the school from the pit of despair it currently resides in.

Richmond School is in imminent danger of being declared dysfunctional amongst those who should be its greatest supporters.

2) There is very little confidence in the approach of the NYCC director of education, Pete Dwyer, to resolving the key issues quickly, or at all.

3) The Interim Executive Board (IEB) is a disaster, completely unrepresentative of the diverse range of communities that sends pupils to the school.

Until it includes board members who know instinctively the nature of these communities, the demands for it to be disbanded immediately will become louder as each day passes.

We wish to express our dismay at the ejection of County Councillor Stuart Parsons from the public meeting organised by the IEB Board.

The meeting was advertised as being of importance to all stakeholders, so if the Chairman of the IEB who directed him to leave considers a County Councillor representing its parents and pupils is unimportant, there is no hope his board will ever win their confidence and the school will simply spiral into Special Measures.

Mr. Dwyer’s response to this serious event has been to call it “embarrassing”, a singularly inadequate response to a deliberate act of exclusion of a key player and a perfect example of the very dictatorship that currently bedevils the reputation of the School.

When choosing members of the IEB, Mr Dwyer ignored our requests to include a County Councillor, so he has very quickly reaped a disastrous dividend on his decision Our suggestions of whom to avoid were also overlooked, so we have the usual suspects whose main qualifications appear to be they have been on other IEB Boards in the past.

There is also no parent or staff representation on the IEB Board, two inexplicable omissions.

We have requested a meeting with Richard Flinton, chief executive of NYCC, where we will be urging him to ensure that parents, pupils, and staff will have a strong voice in the future of Richmond School.

County Councillors STUART PARSONS, HELEN GRANT, JOHN BLACKIE, North Yorkshire Independents.