On March 19th the Chignecto Central Regional School Board made the decision to close Highland Consolidated Middle School in Westville, in favour of renovating Dr. W. A. MacLeod Elementary into a P-8 school. The issue has gathered quite a bit of attention as of late, and I somehow managed to find myself in the middle of the debate. I have, on two occasions, been given the privilege to speak for the cause of keeping Highland open. I feel that would have been the right choice, but I am wise enough to realize that my personal opinion is simply one opinion in a sea of opinions. Was closing Highland the right choice? Some will say no and some will say yes, but in the end I guess only time will tell. I am, however, far from satisfied with what has transpired. The decision that was made I can accept, but the process through which the decision was made I have found to be a big pill to swallow. On March 3rd the School Board held a public meeting to allow the people of Pictou County to express their opinions and concerns regarding the possible closure of Highland Consolidated. I attended that meeting, sitting in the back, listening to all that was said. I recognized several faces in that crowd, and they were the faces of people on the front lines of education in this county; people who would be deeply affected by the outcome. There were several teachers, parents of students, members of councils in the towns affected, and plenty of concerned citizens and tax payers. I sat and listened to all they had to say, and was even compelled eventually to stand and say a few words myself, but all the while I had a sinking feeling that the whole process was just a facade and a waste of time. In light of the facts presented by various people, the move to close Highland just didn’t seem to add up. In spite of this, the general feeling was that the School Board was leaning toward closing the school. I left the meeting that night feeling confused and frustrated. I was not alone in this. At the meeting on March 19th, at the School Board office in Truro, I received a little more insight into what was really going on. I travelled to Truro on a bus provided by the Town of Westville (thank you Mayor MacKay) along with a group of forty or so residents of Westville and Stellarton in who were in favour of keeping Highland open. When the movement to close Highland Consolidated hit the table, a tense debate broke forth and raged on for a full hour or more. In the midst of this I realized something: the decision to close Highland had already been made. It had been made long before any of these meetings took place. The fact was brought up by a board member that the money needed to renovate MacLeod (to the tune of $3.7m or so) was already applied for, granted and allocated, sitting in some government account waiting for the construction to start. There was however no money allocated for the possible salvation of Highland, and with the deadline for the final decision only twelve days hence, there would be no chance of securing said money in time. This meant that even if those who supported Highland’s continued operation were able to sway the majority of the Board to vote down the movement to close the school, the students of Highland would be stuck in their current temporary (and inadequate) situation at MacLeod indefinitely because there was no money to renovate Highland. If the School Board had intended for the continued operation of Highland Consolidated to even be considered as a viable option it would seem to me that applying for the necessary money to do so would have been necessary. As it turns out, the option of keeping Highland open wasn’t really an option at all. It never really was as far as I can tell. The School Board obviously has a clear agenda to close middle schools and send their students to P-8 schools. I am not debating the validity or motive for this agenda. But I don’t like being played. And yet I stand here looking into the mirror of retrospect and what I see staring back bears a striking resemblance to the proverbial fiddle. Apparently the School Board has provisions in place that require that public opinion be a part of the decision making process. I would assume that this is in order to ensure that proper democratic process is the engine driving the publicly elected School Board machine. After all, as I said before, it is the parents, teachers and tax payers (and the children they represent) who are so vastly affected by these decisions, not to mention that it was they who elected the School Board members to begin with. And I would like to remind the members of the School Board that they were not elected to be a dictatorship, but rather a single piece of that which is the great prize of the free world...democracy. This is a word that may need to be publicly defined in this country, because it seems that a great many people who are empowered by it seem to have forgotten exactly how it works. Asking for the public’s opinion on a decision that has already been made is a superficial act that reeks of condescension and disdain. Perhaps the School Board believes that tax payers like myself love to have an opportunity to listen to the sound of our own voices. Perhaps they think that being given the chance to rant in a public forum for a few hours will keep the inferior blue collared folks content and quiet while the elite slip behind closed doors and move forward with their agenda in spite of the opinions of those who granted them access to the room behind those doors in the first place. Shame on you for treating us like children; tolerating our irrational tantrums and then ushering us into our rooms while the grown-ups decide what is best for us. And shame on us for letting you do it. We have grown far too complacent in this country. Fellow tax payer, your opinion may not be the same as mine, but it sure as hell counts for something, because you are a tax payer and a voter and a Canadian. I am not concerned with whether you agree with me or oppose me, but I am very concerned that your voice is not getting through all the red tape that is smothering the democracy that this nation was founded on. For me the closing of a school is nothing compared to the disregard for public opinion that seems to have infected the ranks of those who are (supposedly) seeking to protect the best interests of our children. It’s time we did something to hold our School Board to a higher level of accountability, and I’m sure that is something we can all agree on.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 01:55:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015