156 students will be needed in June before the class threatened with “conditional closure” at the Saint-Léon school (31) can be saved. During a public meeting, everyone was able to take stock of the issue, which should actually be played out within a few students.
On February 29, the CDEN (Departmental Council for National Education) issued its verdict on the school map: despite the mobilization of parents, elected officials, teachers… the school of Saint-Léon, a town of 1,300 inhabitants in the south of Toulouse, under the influence of a ‘conditional closure’ of classes at primary school, holds this sword of Damocles above his head.
This means that children are counted at the end of the school year and then on the first day of school. If the fateful number of 156 students is not reached, the class will close… the day after the start of the school year!
Following this announcement, Mayor Françoise Cases and her team invited parents, teachers, villagers, etc. to a public meeting, on the evening of Thursday, March 7, to present the latest developments on the school map and the actions already taken on and the requested contacts, and above all take stock of the local context, in terms of urban planning and the evolution of the school’s workforce.
Another 35 children planned for 2025
On the urban planning side, the mayor first pushed for the classification of the municipality as a Rural Revitalization Zone (ZRR), a zoning plan that guarantees a certain demographic growth in the coming years. The PLU (Local Urban Development Plan), approved in February 2023, also provides for the creation of 150 additional homes over a period of 15 years. And taking into account the already completed or planned land sales, with a potential of 35 built housing units, the 2025 school year already threatens with 35 additional children under the age of 11.
This means that this 2024 school year is actually at the bottom of the demographic school wave. At the start of the 2022 school year, the numbers were 177 students, and 159 at the start of the 2023 school year. From the start of the 2025 school year, this number should increase to approximately 165.
If there is no registration before 2024 (14 children are planned to be born in the municipality, 5 children from newly arrived families and one coming from a neighboring municipality without a school), 20 PS (small sections) would join the 135 students from other levels. So it is up to a few units, a few registrations one after the other, that the future of the school’s 7th grade is at stake. Registrations are open!