THE board of governors of Laurel Park School in Glasgow approached two other independent schools as well as Hutchesons' Grammar in its search for a merger partner, it has emerged.
The Herald has learnt that, through its lawyers, the board made an approach to Glasgow Academy, Kelvinside Academy, and Hutchesons' with a view to discovering whether any of them was interested in opening discussions about a partnership.
It is understood that Glasgow Academy indicated a merger or similar relationship with the all-girls' school did not fit in with its plans, but that both Kelvinside and Hutchesons' responded positively, with Hutchesons' emerging as Laurel Park's favoured option.
The Hutchesons' proposal is understood to have offered better guarantees on a number of fronts, including the preservation of jobs for Laurel Park's teachers.
Anxious parents of Laurel Park pupils have now formed an action committee, which will tonight hold its first meeting with the school's board of governors.
One of the committee members, Robert Kerr, said the board could legally do as it wished.
''However, we feel that they have some kind of moral contract with the parents and we feel that it is only reasonable that we should be involved in the process to decide the future of our children.''
Mr Kerr, whose daughter Kathryn is in junior class three, said parents were concerned that the board had intended to present them with a fait accompli.
The parents' principal objective was to retain Laurel Park's single-sex status and its school ethos, said Mr Kerr.
Many parents had chosen to send their daughters to Laurel Park because of its record of producing well-rounded, quietly confident girls.
''The ability of girls, or young women, to break through glass ceilings with quiet confidence is so important,'' said Mr Kerr.
He added that parents understood that while Laurel Park was making a small operating loss, it was not ''catastrophic'' once the school's assets were taken into consideration.
Mr Kerr said: ''We do not wish to denigrate Hutchie as a school - that is not the issue. But if we had wanted our children to attend Hutchie, we would have chosen to send them there. Our choice to send them to Laurel Park was based on what they were offering - a single-sex education and a particular ethos in the school.''
At a meeting on Monday night called by the school's parent teachers'aAssociation, only three out of the 300 parents who attended said they would send their daughters to Hutchesons' Grammar in the event of a merger with Laurel Park, he said.
The Laurel Park PTA, meanwhile, has written to the Hutchesons' board asking it not to conclude any negotiations until Laurel Park parents have been consulted.
A sign of how seriously the parties are taking the controversy is the decision by Laurel Park's board to hire a public relations company, Alan Clark Associates, and the parents' action committee's decision to do the same - in their case the Big Partnership.
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