Crombie Primary campaigners have been praised for their “tenacious” fight, despite Fife Council’s Executive Committee finally agreeing to close the school in December.
Given special permission to speak from the public gallery, a last-ditch attempt was made by West Fife and Coastal Villages SNP councillor Kate Stewart to save the rural school from the axe.
However, after a lengthy discussion, councillors voted by 13 to five to close the school.
The Crombie catchment will now be rezoned into the catchment of Limekilns Primary.
Directorate resources manager Shelagh McLean said the closure recommendation followed a comprehensive review and feedback from the community.
The main issues were spare capacity, lack of capacity and condition and suitability of school buildings.
Fellow council official Donna Manson said 14 families in the Crombie catchment area already sent their children to Limekilns Primary, with 14 families going to Crombie.
She said Education Scotland had also backed Fife Council’s closure stance by saying the overall educational benefits for children was a “reasonable and viable option open to the council”.
Moving the school be closed, Glenrothes Labour councillor Kay Morrison, seconded by Councillor Linda Erskine, praised campaigners for their “tenacious, focused, determined and committed” campaign.
She also praised council officials for their professionalism throughout the school estate review.
She noted the issues had been greatly scrutinised and said closing a school was “never easy”.
However, Dunfermline South SNP councillor Brian Goodall, seconded by SNP group leader Peter Grant, rejected claims the closure would not have an impact on the community.
Mr Grant said it seemed “perverse” and “illogical” that the school was recommended for closure when its roll was predicted to increase.
He said the school roll at Crombie may only have declined in recent years because of uncertainty over its future.
He added: “If it is so clear-cut, why are so many people in the community against the closure? Or is this tenacious campaign going to be ignored?”
However, the Fife Council report concluded the closure of Crombie Primary represented the “only viable way” to provide sustainable primary education in this particular area of Fife.
A five-year moratorium on rural school closures, which came in on August 1 as part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act (2014), would have applied if councillors had not made a decision.