Thanks again everyone,

Waye

The Minister took our calls on her cell phone, the HRSB Superintendent did not, the consultants started by ignoring us and in the end they too took our calls.   The elected school board got fired, though we cannot take sole responsibility for this.  In the end, we succeed, and none of the schools proposed for closure will be closed.

Lets review, for a moment.  The original proposal on fall 2006 was a staff proposal to closes Inglis, St Mary’s and Le Marchant/St Thomas to create a single mega-school, 700 students P-6.  Parents fought and defeated that.

We insisted that parents should be involved, as they were in the 2002 school review and that we should make recommendations to the Board.  We were initially promised that by Carol Olsen, in June of 2007, but by September it had turned into parents talking to consultants from Toronto who would then write a report for all of the peninsula, with no direct parental involvement.  Nevertheless, parents came out for meeting after meeting to try and shape the process, no matter how biased and unfair the process the consultants were running was designed to be.

The consultants proposed, in spring 2008, to close three schools on the peninsula.  HRSB staff submitted their own report, and proposed to close different schools.  Parents and school communities organized again, came out again, to argue their case.  In the end, the one man school board, Howard Windsor, decided to close St Mary’s and St Patricks/Alexandra.  One school had been recommended by the expensive consulting process that no one supported.  One had not.

In October 2008 a new smaller board was elected.  They decided to review the decisions.  Today, they have decided to close St Pats.  St Mary’s for the millionth time, has been saved from the chopping block.  While today there are some parents at St Pats who are very upset, most believe a single better resourced school will serve that community better.

While we have every reason to celebrate beating back the poorly thought out decisions of a bureaucracy at HRSB that no longer seems associated with the reality of education in this city, you can expect the celebrations will be muted.

Why?

Hundreds and hundreds of hours of parent volunteer time has been poured into saving schools, participating in processes, fighting the school board, mobilizing communities.  There is only a finite amount of time each parent has in each school to help make that school a better place.  Instead of raising money for playgrounds, organizing extracurriculars, supporting teachers in the classroom, parents have been sending emails, writing press releases, making placards, attending endless meetings.

We can only hope that the school board will force staff to accept a new model of capital planning that would ensure parental involvement at the beginning, to ensure the communities are heard at all levels of planning, not just in the dramatic and emotional end.

Congratulations to all the families who have worked so hard to save these schools, you deserve a break, and I am sure you will all enjoy a return to your normal, uninterrupted lives.

Board votes to close St. Patrick’s -Alexandra
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter
Wed. Mar 25 – 5:04 AM

The Halifax regional school board voted 5-3 Tuesday to close St. Patrick’s-Alexandra School after a review and public meetings on the fate of the peninsular site.

Members had debated closing the Maitland Street school by September of this year but decided to have a separate vote on the date of the closure, a move that ultimately gave the school some breathing room.

In a separate decision, the school board voted 8-0 to keep Saint Mary’s School open.

St. Patrick’s-Alexandra serves pupils in grades Primary to 9. At its meeting Tuesday, the school board initially talked about keeping the school open but that proposal died on the floor.

Then the board debated closing the school this year, and finally discussed delaying the shutdown until 2011. The vote to close the school in 2011 was tied, and board chairman Irvine Carvery broke the deadlock, opting for the later closure.

Board members said they appreciate how important the school is to many families in the community, but the meeting also heard that lots of parents over the years have sent their children to schools out of the district.

St. Patrick’s-Alexandra not only had a declining enrolment to deal with, but “an image problem” as an undesirable school to attend, board members said.

An audience of parents, students and teachers heard that a new school is planned to replace St. Pat’s-Alexandra, but principal Ken Fells wasn’t optimistic it’ll be built any time soon. He told reporters he’s worried about his students having to adjust to new schools.

“None of the (board) members that talked up there talked about transition time, and what the transition’s going to be like for our children to go to other schools,” Mr. Fells said. “It’s going to be very hard.”

Saint Mary’s, situated on Morris Street, serves students in grades Primary to 6. Board members said the school has much to offer pupils and parents, but a couple of them worried about potential fire hazards inside the building.

According to the Halifax board’s website, Saint Mary’s was built in 1950 and had 110 students in 2008. St. Patrick’s-Alexandra was built in 1971 and had 80 students registered last year, the website says.

Howard Windsor, the retired civil servant who was a one-man school board for almost two years at the request of former education minister Karen Casey, had ruled that both Halifax schools and Alderney School, a Dartmouth elementary, needed to be reviewed for closure.

His decision was a response to the first phase of Imagine Our Schools, a long-term master plan for facilities prepared by Toronto consultants.

The only way to appeal a school closing will be through the courts, Mr. Carvery said this week. Any appeal will have to be based on how board members carried out the process, he said.

Alderney School’s fate will be decided tonight.

( mlightstone@herald.ca)

The board has elected to bring that week’s board meeting to us, into the heart of the Saint Mary’s and St. Pats-Alexandra communities, for the votes on whether or not to close one or the other or both of the schools. Citadel High will host the event. Hats off to the elected board for giving this part of the process the recognition, accessibility, profile and conclusion it so thoroughly deserves.

It’s been a long slog since last March when we were targeted for closure by Mr. Windsor, the one-man board. It is to him that we owe our current challenge. But we’ve been here before and demonstrated to the board, the four democratically elected bodies that preceded him, that we’re relevant and effective and distinct. It’s no different this time round. Let’s see whether the board’s been listening and show them that we’re all ears.

Come on out on the 24th and get behind this effort one more time.
Citadel High,
Tuesday, March 24, 6:00 pm.
Lots of on-site and on-street parking.