A majority on Faxe Municipality’s city council has agreed to close Terslev Skole at the end of the current school year, with pupils moved to larger schools in Haslev.
The closure is part of the municipality’s budget agreement for next year, DR reports. The village school in southern Zealand has 58 pupils spread across grades 0 to 6 this year. Council members concluded that it is too expensive to run.
Mayor Mikkel Dam of Liberal Alliance and eight other parties on the council are behind the agreement. It was signed by 18 of the city council’s 25 members on Monday. The budget now goes into an eight week consultation period before final adoption.
According to the mayor, the decision is not only about money. He points to a decline in pupil numbers at Terslev Skole over the years, and says the school is not viable economically, academically or as a workplace. Politicians want to use the funds to raise standards at the municipality’s other schools.
Faxe Kommune’s own budget proposal, published on 21 August 2026, stated that the mayor’s draft budget lays the ground for closing Terslev Skole. It also stated that the money saved would remain within the school system to support other initiatives in the municipality.
Hours before the budget was signed, new national figures on failure rates at the school leaving exams were released. DR’s overview of exam results shows Faxe Kommune performing below the national average. In the municipality, 17.1 percent of ninth grade pupils did not pass Danish and mathematics in this summer’s exams.
The closure has been politically contested. Last week Venstre, led by former mayor Ole Vive, left the budget negotiations. The prospect of closing Terslev Skole was among the reasons the draft budget was unacceptable to the party.
Parents point to the school’s size
Lotte Langgaard Andersen lives in Terslev and has two children in the Terslev Landsbyordning. That arrangement covers nursery, kindergarten, school and after school care on the same site. Her son is in his final kindergarten year and her daughter is in third grade.
She told DR she had believed a solution would be found, and noted that several politicians did not see closure as the best option. Parents at the school had protested earlier and raised the issue with council members. She said her daughter overcame a period of school refusal at the small school.
Pupils from Terslev are being offered places at Nordskovskolen or Sofiendalskolen in Haslev. Because Terslev Skole only goes to sixth grade, its management already handles transitions to larger schools. Langgaard Andersen said the receiving schools are good, but that they cannot do the same as a small school.
