WOODSIDE Secondary School Board wishes to respond to a number of points in The Herald (June 2) concerning Glasgow City Council's proposals on the future of Hillhead High School and Woodside Secondary School.

From the outset, last November, of the informal consultation on the future of the two schools, the Woodside board has maintained an objective and constructive stance on rationalisation - we just want to achieve what will be educationally best, in the long term, for all of the young people in the areas served by Hillhead and Woodside.

Contrary to the misinformation which you printed, there is no proposal to close Hillhead, and statements to the contrary are designed to mislead the public. The proposal is that Woodside should close and its pupils transfer to an extended and refurbished Hillhead - truth, not ''spin''.

The facts are that, under the proposal, there would not even be a ''merger'' of the two schools, as is incorrectly stated by your correspondent. Hillhead would continue to exist, and its teaching staff would all remain in their posts in the larger school, while the posts of the Woodside staff would cease to exist, regardless of whether the ''New Hillhead'' were to be located on the current Hillhead or Woodside campus.

We find it hard to fathom the logic of comments suggesting that, if transposed to the Woodside site, the Hillhead staff would not be able to be as effective, with far better accommodation and facilities, as they are now in a quite unacceptable standard of school building.

The ''spokesman for the Hillhead Parents' Action Group'' states that '' . . . the Woodside site is in Finnieston'' - in fact, it isn't.

''Dr Green, convener of education . . . has the Woodside school in his constituency'' - he hasn't, although, with four other councillors, he represents part of our catchment area.

''Not one shred of new evidence has been produced to explain this decision'' (to consider the two sites objectively and equally) - in fact, detailed evidence on the facilities which could be included on each of the developed sites, and their costs, has only recently become available.

The Hillhead ''school insider'' refers to the relative costs of developing the sites: #4m at Woodside against #9m (#9.5m at present, in fact) at Hillhead, adding that ''the council doesn't actually pick up the tab. That money's released from the Scottish Office''.

The money is still the taxpayers' money and the council has a duty to ensure that it is spent appropriately. Surely it is only reasonable to allow an open, public debate on the best use of such large sums of public money.

The statement of your correspondent, Carlos Alba, that Hillhead ''outperforms Woodside in virtually every meaningful respect'' requires closer scrutiny. He refers to the ''key indicators'' of cost, attendance, and academic performance and quotes some 1997 figures.

The Scottish Office statistics show that it costs more to educate a pupil in Woodside than it does at Hillhead. Carlos Alba has managed to ''copy out'' the Woodside figure slightly wrongly.

The simple explanation for the difference is that Woodside is a smaller school, not that we are doing something wrong. This ''snapshot'' does not reflect Woodside's record of having the most extensive out-of-school hours/community use of all the schools in the former Strathclyde area - seven days a week. The value of Woodside to the community is not reflected in the figures quoted. Cost can be used as an issue in this respect but is apparently ''not a criterion'' when it comes to a difference of #5.5m in the projected costs of new buildings.

On attendance, no figures are offered by your correspondent but the two schools lie about one percentage point either side of the Glasgow average.

In academy performance, based on the so-called league tables, Hillhead's record is worthy of congratulations but this means of measuring school performance is crude and thoroughly discredited, as shown by the Government's abandonment of it in favour of a value-added analysis. Viewed in this way, the performance of the two schools has less to separate them, but yes, Hillhead still does well.

By referring to ''virtually every meaningful respect'' Carlos Alba intrigues us. What has he chosen not to mention? An interesting indicator of a school's success, and perhaps one of the most telling, must be the destination of its pupils after they leave school.

The most recent Government statistics show that for the 1997 school leavers the figures were: -

n entering full-time high or further education - Hillhead 52%; Woodside 50%;

n entering training or employment - Hillhead 20%; Woodside 31%;

n other known destinations - Hillhead 24%; Woodside 20%.

This session Woodside will take new first-year pupils from over 20 primaries (we have five associated primaries), so we must be doing something which people like.

John Goudie, James McHardy,

On behalf of Woodside

Secondary School Board,

147 Berkeley Street, Glasgow.

June 2.