A protest was held by senior pupils outside Montrose Academy on Friday as a school prom row took a fresh twist.
The Courier earlier revealed that the school suddenly withdrew an offer of £250 towards the cost of the senior prom on Tuesday due to a carpet being damaged in the sixth year common room.
The prom committee took the decision to not have a photo booth as part of the night’s entertainment to ensure it will still go ahead at the West Park in Dundee on June 10.
However, it emerged that this left the bank account used to keep proceeds from the ticket sales with a balance of £180 – which pupils claim is going to be kept by the school.
This led to pupils turning up at the school just before 3.30pm with a length of carpet which had the words: “Here’s your carpet, where’s our money?” written on it.
The group of around 30 pupils also held up home-made placards such as “Damages?”, “Refund”, “Unfair”, “Prom” and “£180+”.
The carpet was then tied up on the railings beside the school sign before the pupils moved the protest further up the road.
A sixth year member of the committee said: “The photo booth cost more than £250 so they took the extra ticket money away and kept that for the carpet as well.
“The money was raised directly from ticket sales and the pupils expect to have been given this back.
“The committee even offered to give it to a charity that the houses have supported.
“There are many things we could have spent £180 on but the committee was forced them into giving it to the head teacher as an apparent gesture of goodwill.
“Nobody is happy about it.”
Another sixth year pupil said: “They were saying that in order to pay for a new carpet in the SYS room that they had to dig into the prom funds.
“It’s a school carpet and there’s no apparent damage to it, it’s just wear and tear.
“This isn’t what the money was meant to be spent on.”
A parent of a sixth year pupil said: “It’s a bit unethical to say the least.”
Around 80 pupils are expected to attend the prom in June.
A council spokesman said no fine had been levied.
He said: “As stated previously, a sum of money from the senior school benefit fund was tentatively set aside to assist with this non-school event.
“However, it has been necessary to direct this money towards putting right damage caused to the common room.
“The school has worked with the young people to review this event and have established there is a surplus amount of money.
“It is for the young people to decide what they wish to do with this sum.”
