School consultations yield suggestions for board consideration
Posted Feb 24, 2012 04:18:43 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Four of five public consultations on school reviews have been held this week, with the last one set for Monday at Prince Arthur Junior high.
The five schools up for review and possible closure are, South Woodside Elementary, Sackville Centennial Elementary, Gertrude Parker Elementary, Central Spryfield Elementary and Prince Arthur Junior High.
Halifax Regional School Board chair Irvine Carvery tells News 95.7 the public sessions have been going “absolutely fantastic.”
“At each and every one of them, we’ve had great participation, great turnout by the parents in the area,” he says. “They have not had any difficulty in bringing forward their concerns around their schools.”
He says the public is bringing a lot of options to the board’s attention.
“In the Sackville area particularly, there are a lot of schools with the developments of the early ’70’s in Sackville and the way that community grew, schools were just plunked down as the population grew,” he begins, adding people suggested maybe there needed to be boundary reviews before decision were made on closing schools.
Another example, he says, in Central Spryfield were there are concerns the board might not be aware of the amount of development in the area, “…suggesting that if we close their school in three years, we’d probably have to build a new one.”
Carvery says after what they’ve heard this week, he expects the board’s debate on closures will be “lively”.
“We go out, we listen to the school population, and that’s just one more piece of information that we need to weigh against both the report from staff and the report from the school review committee.”
