Kletsko-Pochtovsky Khutor Residents Oppose School Merger Plans

At a meeting of residents of Kletsko-Pochtovsky khutor on January 30, the head of Serafimovichsky District, Tatyana Ilyina, faced unanimous opposition to plans to reorganize the local school. Villagers stated their categorical disagreement with merging the educational institution with a school in the district center.

The situation was commented on by special military operation participant Nikolai Vasilyev, who was born in this khutor. In a video address, he said, «I have been in the special military operation for four years now. I am defending our Motherland in the hope of a better, brighter future for my children. And at the same time, a real sabotage is happening in my small homeland.» He noted that Kletsko-Pochtovskaya School, where he, his wife studied and their children are currently studying, is planned to be reorganized by merging it with Serafimovichskaya School.

According to Vasilyev, a village without a school is doomed to extinction. He emphasized that the district administration had already attempted to carry out the reorganization in 2018 and 2022, but at that time, residents managed to defend the independence of the educational institution.

«We all know where such experiments with education lead. Rural schools end up being closed to save the budget, without thinking about the people,» the man said. On behalf of special military operation participants from the rural settlement, he opposed reorganization in any form, including turning it into a branch, and called on the regional authorities and law enforcement agencies to pay attention to the problem.

At the meeting with the district head, residents, according to them, received support from school graduates working in investigative bodies and the prosecutor«s office. Tatyana Ilyina reportedly did not give direct answers to the questions troubling people, appealing to the future improvement of education quality after merging the schools into one legal entity. She assured that the educational institutions would remain in their places, and teachers would travel to neighboring schools to work.

Residents demanded that their collective opinion against the reorganization be officially recorded and called on the authorities to seek budgetary funds not at the expense of education, but within the framework of rural development programs.

Earlier, in Kotovsky District of Volgograd Oblast, the oldest school in the region — Pereshchepnovskaya — was closed, which was a branch of Mokro-Olkhovskaya Secondary School. The formal reason was cited as the absence of students.

The Committee of Education and Science of Volgograd Oblast is clarifying information about the prospects for reorganizing the school in Kletsko-Pochtovsky khutor.