Schools are the heart of the community

Michèle Raymond
Wednesday February 25, 2009

This is a difficult month for the people served by the
Halifax Regional School Board, as the board begins consultations on the future shape of schooling in some of the outlying areas of HRM, including the Chebucto peninsula, with the JL Ilsley and Sir John A MacDonald family of schools, and the Eastern Shore.

The board was requested by the Department of Education to justify its capital funding requests by analysis of the current facilities, and hired consultants three years ago to conduct a ‘consultation process’ called “Imagine our Schools”.

Phase I of that process was completed last year, and involved primarily schools on the Halifax Peninsula. Now Phase II, outer-lying schools is underway.

On January 23, provincial and municipal representatives were invited the HRSB offices for an introduction to the process. That introduction raised many questions for me about the process itself.

I keep in my office an image labelled “Levels of Participation”; I refer to it often, whenever I find myself or constituents in the middle of a ‘consultation process’, to see just where on the scale this one falls, from outright manipulation through information-sharing, consensus-building, or, ideally, shared decision-making.

When I heard elected officials tell the Imagine Our Schools consultants that they’d never heard of the meetings, and hadn’t seen advertisements of consultations, I wondered how citizens would have found out about participation.

And when I was at later meetings, the sparse attendance, and some comments, suggested that indeed, few people were aware of an exercise which will lead to decisions about schools closing, staying open, or consolidating.

When I saw consultants list as a basic tenet that ‘all programs should be delivered in all schools’, I questioned where this assumption had come from, and was told it came from citizens involved with Phase I (urban core) schools. I pointed out then, and have repeatedly that this can’t be assumed true of citizens in outerlying schools. It may be true that parents want all programs in all schools, but if that comes at the cost of closing schools unable to deliver, for example, music in a specialized music room, it may not be the will of the community. But the question must be explicitly asked, and explicitly answered, before any presumption is
made.

The decisions about opening, closing and consolidating schools is
apparently largely based on physical facilities: whether or not a building includes a specialized music room, art room, lunch room, gym, etc. “Capacity” and projected future occupancy rates are also a major factor.

Many smaller, older schools lack these specialized spaces, but they are also often the schools in outer lying communities which are projected to decline in population (although consultants admitted they leave allowances for ‘unpredicted’ growth). If the unused classroom space is converted to these spaces, and the Department of Education formula of 22 square feet of classroom space per student is applied, suddenly these schools are much closer to the ideal 85% – 90% occupancy rate. At one Imagine our Schools
meeting, I asked whether these conversions would be calculated, before comparing occupancy rates in schools with existing program spaces, and those without. I was told the calculations would have to be made — but the next day preliminary recommendations about closures appeared, apparently before apples and oranges were unmixed.

This is the worst kind of consultation, and it can bear some of the worst kind of fruit for any community.

Schools are the heart of the community, and children carry with them their early experiences. If they spend hours on a bus,
being transported to a school instead of walking, and missing after-school activities because they might miss the bus, they are missing valuable experience- physically , socially and academically.

Some of our smaller schools, such as Sambro Elementary, have produced some of our finest students, and some of our most engaged citizens. Some communities decide that there are tradeoffs to be made to preserve smaller schools. Other communities do not.

But these are not simple decisions. JL Ilsley may not be the most
modern high school in HRM, and may not even contain all the facilities of newer schools — but it can boast Rhodes scholars, professional artists, scientists,craftsmen, and a body of students who may go away to study or work, but come home to raise their children here, in schools they themselves attended.

Schools don’t serve only the narrow bandwidth of age between five and 18-years old, but entire communities. Their fate is not to be lightly decided, and certainly not to be decided, then publicly presented under the guise of asking community opinion.

I’m proud of the citizens who have gotten involved in the Imagine Our Schools process, and proud of those who’ve gotten others involved. The fate of our schools affects us all; please think about it, and make your opinions known, whatever they may be.

For more information on Imagine our Schools, go to www.hrsb.ns.ca.

« Previous Article
NS TRANSPORTATION LINKS ERODING - RAYMOND

Next Article »
OPENHANDED SPENDING NEEDS TO COME WITH OPEN BOOKS