Nova Scotia introduces new school closure review process
Posted Apr 23, 2014 02:39:04 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Parents voiced their concerns and the province seems to have listened.
The Liberals have introduced a new school review system based on the recommendations that came out of a review conducted by former Deputy Minister Robert Fowler.
The new legislation would require school boards to develop long-term regional plans and require local school review committees to make recommendations with the help of a facilitator.
Some of the changes include more public engagement and ensuring all schools in a family are looked at when considering closures, instead of just one.
Education minister Karen Casey says under the new system, a review would also look at other options like consolidation, instead of simply reviewing if a single school should stay open or close.
“There could be a new school that’s announced which would take away the need to do a school closure review, there could be looking at grade configurations within that family of schools,” she explains. “It may mean working with the municipality; it may mean working with the community. We know that the whole notion of hub schools has been floating out there so this will provide an opportunity for that to be more fully explored”
Robert Fowler says the hope is that having more engagement will make parents, who felt the old system was too secretive, more open to the process.
“I don’t think you can ever take the emotion out,” he says. “I do believe based on the consultation that we did, talking with a broad range of stakeholders, that a more inclusive process will make it better, more understandable and more based in fact as opposed to different points of view.”
Fowler adds the fact of the matter is parents don’t want their school to close and they didn’t trust the information boards gave them during past reviews.
“They didn’t always feel that they had adequate responses to where that information came from, how it was derived and whether it was current,” he says.
Ultimately, school boards will still remain responsible for deciding whether a school should be closed and Casey admits she doesn’t know how this new system will be received.
“Until there is a willingness for everyone to sit down and look at what’s in the best interests of students, I guess I would be nervous as to whether this would work or not,” she says.
No schools are currently under review and none can be put forward until the new process is in place which should happen by September.
