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What
happened at the HRSB meeting on April 8th?
Presentation:
Good Evening
Halifax Regional School Board Members, Staff, Kingswood Ratepayers,
friends of the Hammonds Plains Community, members of the press and guests,
Thank you for
the opportunity to speak to you this evening. My name is Marlene
Fairhurst-Vaughan. I am a board member and chair of the school issues
committee for the Kingswood Ratepayers Association. The board of
directors for Kingswood, is an elected board, representing the
interests of our 1000 plus families located in Kingswood and Blue
Mountain. We now find ourselves involved in one of the most anxiety
producing situations that our neighbourhood has experienced ... the
splitting of our neighbourhood with continued instability of
education for our children.
The community
of Hammonds Plains is no stranger to overcrowding. We spoke to a
teacher who taught at Hammonds Plains Consolidated School in a
portable back in the 70's. We housed our children in Bedford Central
during the renovations of 1996. While awaiting the opening of our
middle school, in 1999, our grade 6 population was taken to Caudal
Park in Sackville and our grade 7's to Eaglewood elementary.
Unfortunately, we were excluded from the new school proposed to
address the elementary overcrowding. The solution was a boundary
change removing Haliburton Hills from the Hammonds Plains catchment
area. Today, both communities continue to sit in overcrowding.
Today, we come
to you, the school board members, as a community with much experience
in the trials of shuffling our children from school to school in
response to overcrowding and poor planning. Experience has told us
that students going with their peers, helps to ensure that your
system supports the academic, social, emotional and physical success
of all students. If you would prefer to not base your decision on the
experience of parents, please look at the literature. Throughout the
educational literature it is recognized that a child's functioning in
school is inextricably linked with his or her sense of belonging and
connection to the school environment and his or her relationships
with peers and teachers within it. We are not suggesting to you that
we will not go. We have only requested that the grade-level option be
given top priority as, 'the will of the directly affected community'.
There were three meetings, one public and two initiated by the
Kingswood Ratepayers. One included a survey and many community
members from all of Hammonds Plains spoke at the HRSB public meeting.
I believe you have copies of those presentations. Ms. Olsen attended
our last meeting of the Kingswood Ratepayers Association. We have
contacted most all of our grade 4 and 5 parents over the past week.
The message was clear ... grade-level.
Our Kingswood
grade 4,5 scenario offers the numbers that are needed to lessen the
stress of overcrowding on the Hammonds Plains community. This would
be a one-time move, for two years, only affecting the students
entering grades four and five in 2003. With this scenario, the
students will continue on to grade 5,6 at Rockingham. This removes
the need for some students to change schools every year. Under the
P-6 scenario, current grade fives will have seen a change of schools
every year for five years. 4-HPCS, 5-MSMS, 6-Rockingham, 7-MSMS,
8-new school. What if this were your child? Would this be considered
reasonable? Having the grade 4,5's stay at Rockingham also lessens
the pressure on Rockingham to provide transitional support every year.
Like you we do not want to be faced with addressing this issue again
next year. Please allow us two years of stability for all of our
children. Some of you have asked what happens if the new school is
not ready? We would be faced with the same situation as the P-6
scenario. To prevent program loss, and further fragmentation of our
community, we would expect that our children would come back to MSMS
for grade 7, but only if our new school is behind schedule.
We understand
your consideration of added costs. We do not believe the grade-level
scenario will mean extra costs.
Bussing. The
number of buses used dictates the cost of bussing, not how far it
travels. With the grade 4,5 scenario, we will only need the busses
for late dismissal. They will be free for use during early dismissal.
There is no additional bus cost, and perhaps savings. We do recognize
the increase in bus time. However, currently our children spend an
average of 35-37 minutes travelling to and from school, with the
extremes being more than 50 minutes. Another reason we prefer that
our younger children remain within our community.
Some of you
have expressed concerns about a bulge at the grade 4,5 level in
Rockingham. When our students went to Caudle Park, there was a bulge
at grade 6, but there were no reported cases of increased problems
that this would cause. In fact, the principal at the time said that
it was positive. They had a stronger leadership group for that year,
such as peer mediators and peer mentoring. There was no mention or
experience of increased bullying due to a bulge at grade 6.
The children
will be spending 1hour and 15 minutes at the school waiting for the
afternoon session. Upon our arrival, Rockingham will be forced to
give up the space they currently use for those that stay for lunch.
This space will now be made into classrooms. (I don't believe that
cost was factored in.)
All children
will now eat in their classrooms. This means that the supervision of
these students will be wide spread. As parents from Hammonds Plains
with 100% of our children staying at school for lunch, we know the
difficulties and challenges in finding enough lunchtime monitors to
ensure the safety and assistance for children that eat outside of the
cafeteria. We believe that the lunchtime demand on Rockingham will be
lessened with the grade 4,5 scenario, by enabling them to stay within
close proximity.
Remember this
is an interim solution. What happens to the children being shuffled
should be of the utmost importance. |
