PARENTS are crying foul over county council spending on a four-page full colour press advertisement which they say is sheer propaganda on the case for amalgamating special and mainstream schools.

"It is our money and everyone else's they are spending on this. It is four pages putting their side, at our expense, without a word for the other point of view," said Gill Dovey, one of the parents. "We do not have that sort of spending power."

She said they would also like to know why it was not included in Forest papers – where special needs schools have been named in closure proposals.

She and Wendy Wilding, who both have children at Dean Hall school for children with special needs, say they have tackled the Gloucester and Stroud newspapers who said the transaction was purely commercial.

However the Gloucester paper had afterwards agreed to allow them space to put their points of view.

And Dr Stephen Huggett, head of special education needs for Gloucestershire LEA, defended the advertisements on the grounds that publicity had until now been largely in favour of people who were actively against closing special schools. It had been time to balance the publicity.

The two parents, who both come from Bream, say many people in the Forest are "concerned, anxious and appalled" that there is a real possibility the LEA will close Dean Hall, the only school for children with moderate learning difficulties in the area.

They are holding a public meeting on the issue at Lakers School, Berry Hill, on Monday (September 27) at 7.30pm and would like anybody interested in the subject to attend.

They say most of the children at Dean Hall have already experienced mainstream schooling and have not been able to cope, not only academically but socially and emotionally.

"No amount of finance pumped into our mainstream schools is going to give these children the same standard of education and care as well as security, satisfaction of knowing they can join in with other children and self confidence as they now get at Dean Hall," they say.

"The facilities there are second to none and the staff are truly remarkable.

"It is not only the parents of special educational needs children who do not want these special schools to close. Many mainstream schools have been in touch with us and given their full support.

"For various reasons they do not want these children. They can barely cope now."

But Dr Huggett said the protesters' views were different from the feedback the county council was getting on proposals to close some special schools – Dean Hall among them – and place more children with special needs at mainstream schools.

"This is much more even – in fact, almost half the replies we are getting are for the proposals," he said.

"And interestingly most people for the proposals are those who already have special needs children who are attending mainstream schools while those against have children at special schools."

He said the decision on where to advertise had not been his but he believed it was made on circulation figures. The costs had been "minuscule" – he thought perhaps 9p per copy – in the context of the £32m they were spending on putting special needs schooling in place for the next 20-25 years.