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Would you send your child to a school that had been described as presenting a “significant risk to life”?

That sounds absurd, right? And couldn’t possibly happen in 21st-century Scotland, where education is a top priority and we’re living in the best country in the world for children to grow up… could it?

Unfortunately, it could, and it has. In fact, this appears to be precisely the situation facing families who send their children to Lenzie Academy in East Dunbartonshire.

The issues were first revealed in November when a Fire Risk Assessment – which had been carried out in October – was leaked. That document was reported to include incredibly serious problems, including the fact that some fire doors could not be easily and immediately opened in the event of an emergency.

As failures to properly manage and maintain a school go, that’s about as big as it gets, and we should probably be grateful that this problem was not discovered under the most tragic of circumstances. Hard questions must now be asked, and resignations may be necessary.

The council claims to have taken action to deal with the issues identified, but has now admitted that it will take months to fully address them.

Unsurprisingly, teachers at the school (who had been raising concerns about the state of the building for quite some time) say that this is not good enough. As The Herald has already reported, they are now being balloted for targeted strike action........

© Herald Scotland