The community speaks up

See that tiny dime taped to the middle of the big sheet of green bristol board? That represents the amount of space that children at Madoc Public School have to play compared to those at Madoc Township Public School; the latter students have all that green. Community member Randy Gray came up with this brilliant and powerful representation of what MTPS kids will be facing if their school is closed and they’re moved to the town school.

If you’ve been closely following the story of how our excellent and beloved local elementary school is being threatened with closure, you probably have a good sense of how things went at the public meeting held to discuss the issue last Wednesday. Perhaps you were one of the people who packed the gym at Centre Hastings Secondary School in Madoc to listen and/or speak out. If you weren’t, you may well have heard the report that was on one local radio news outlet; and you can expect to see stories about the meeting in the local weekly newspapers when they arrive in the mailbox a little later this week.

But the best way to learn about what happened at the meeting is to go to (and join, if you haven’t already) the Save Madoc Township Public School Facebook group. There you’ll find (thanks to the volunteers who undertook this project) a Facebook Live streaming of the full meeting, as well as individual videos of the individual speakers. Talk about great coverage!

Because you can see it all in real time, I don’t think I need to go into a lot of detail about what was said at the meeting. I would, however, like to highlight for you a few things that were highlights for me as I sat and took it all in.

First I’d like to offer sincere thanks to the seven trustees from the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board who came out to the meeting. These elected officials have to attend a lot of meetings, and they give up many afternoons and evenings and travel many miles to do so. It’s very much appreciated that they came to CHSS on Wednesday, some travelling from as far away as Tyendinaga and the Bancroft area. One other trustee sent her regrets because she had to attend a similar meeting that night in her own part of Prince Edward County. So that leaves only two of the total 10 trustees who make up the board – and who hold the fate of Madoc Township Public School and the two schools in the village of Madoc in their hands – as a no-show. That’s impressive! And like I said, very much appreciated. So thank you to chair Lucille Kyle and trustees Bonnie Danes, Justin Bray, Mike Brant, Dave Patterson, Mary Hall and Jim Williams.

The main thrust of all the presentations given by members of the public was the two alternative recommendations that have been forward by community volunteers to counter the plan put forward by board administrators. These recommendations are widely seen as preferable to the administrators’ plan. Let’s quickly review, for those who may need a refresher:

The board administration has recommended closing Madoc Township Public School at the end of the current school year, sending all its students to Madoc Public School in the village, and sending the students in Grades 7 and 8 from both elementary schools’ areas to a renovated section of the high school.

The alternative proposals are:

1. Keep Madoc Township Public School open and bring back its Grade 7 and 8 students. The school went up to Grade 8 when it was built in 1961, but in the early 1970s students in the two higher grades were moved to Madoc Public School. There’s no compelling reason for them to be there, and bringing them back to MTPS will mean our beautiful country school will be fully used. No empty space to maintain, in other words. This recommendation calls for the consolidation of Madoc Public School and CHSS.
2. Build a new school to house all students, from kindergarten through Grade 12, and to replace all three existing schools. Because this would take time, this would give the existing schools a reprieve of two or three years – at the end of which there would be a state-of-the-art, fully accessible and environmentally friendly facility.

One of the major arguments for keeping MTPS open, cited by speaker after speaker, was the extensive playground and outdoor spaces that it offers students. The school is surrounded by more than five acres of land where children can run, play and learn about the natural world around them. How many schools can boast that?

The space at MTPS was dramatically illustrated by a simple but powerful visual aid brought to the meeting by community member Randy Gray. It was a big piece of green bristol board representing the green space at MTPS. In the centre was a taped a dime – representing the tiny play space at Madoc Public School. Randy had ensured the dimensions were accurate (“Hey, I know how to carry the one,” he joked to me after the meeting as I took his photo. “I went to Madoc Township Public School!”), and it was very, very impressive.

This photo gives you some idea of the vast size of the grounds at Madoc Township Public School. It’s taken from close to the far end of the open fields and playgrounds to the rear of the school, looking toward the school building. The track and everything you see in front of you is where kids can run and play. Photo by Denise Gray

What else was talked about ?

• Inaccuracies in the information presented to the public and the trustees about renovation needs (and costs) at the three schools. Major work (a roof, new windows) that has already been done and paid for at MTPS was still showing as a future need and a future expense, and thus a negative in considering the building’s future.
• The crowded-to-the-point-of-dangerous situation in the areas where buses load and unload students at Madoc Public School. Randy Rowe, a school-bus driver and member of Madoc Township council, told the crowd:
  

  The Madoc schools are already over-congested with parents picking up and dropping off students. Vehicles parked in front of MPS are daily backing out into live lanes of traffic while children and parents are zig-zagging through them to get to their cars. Adding 120 more students [from MTPS] and their families will contribute to an already unsafe situation.

• Other issues raised by Rowe:
  • Because of the lack of space for bus loading zones at the two schools, three buses in the afternoon have to park in the smoking area outside the high school. Any students riding these buses, he said
    

    have to pass through the smoking area and then sit until departure time overlooking this daily influence and inhaling cigarette fumes.

• • Adding 120 students to the buses travelling to MPS and CHSS will cause overcrowded buses:
    

    I know from my experience that an overcrowded bus creates dynamic situations. As we max out the seating capacities on buses it creates quarrelling, fighting and conflicts and becomes unsafe, since the only adult on the bus, the driver, is responsible for so many children.

• Bruce Buttar, the area representative of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, spoke about how the departure of young people and families, when there are no services such as schools for them, is hurting rural Ontario. The OFA and its partners are working hard to reverse this trend and revitalize rural areas, he said – “but we need a solid school system.” Buttar added that in rural areas, schools are community hubs as well as places for kids to learn; when they are closed, they’re closed for the entire community. He urged the trustees and the board administrators to dare to think differently, to support rural schools and rural life. Hear, hear!
• One of the most impressive speeches was a brief one from Leslie Chapman, a woman whose family had, back in the 19th century, given the land on which Madoc Township Public School now sits as a place for its predecessor, the small Burris School (SS#9, Madoc Township). She implored the trustees to think about “the rich, rich heritage this school has.” Bravo!
• Amy Beaton, the parent of a student at MTPS, noted that the board’s decision on our schools is scheduled for June 19, when there are only eight school days left. Eight days, she suggested with emotion evident in her voice, is not nearly enough for the students to say goodbye to their school community. Spending those final days as their much-loved place is being filled with moving boxes and being shut down “is not a very memorable last few days at school,” she said. And what about honouring the legacy of MTPS? Former students, she noted, would surely want to come, some from afar, and take part in that; how could it be properly done in eight days?
• Carrie Smith, a Madoc Township councillor, spoke very eloquently and made so many good points. I urge you to watch the video, but here’s an excerpt:
  

  The closing of our only school will affect who chooses to move into our township, as [the local school is] often a deciding factor for many families. I strongly feel that this will be a deterrent to families … We are becoming a disjointed society with little to tie us to our roots. Madoc Township Public School has provided such a strong sense of community for so many years – and I just can’t help but think it’s the time that we spent together outside in the amazing green space just being kids for a moment longer in time. Our lives are ever-increasingly becoming more and more hectic, and this school is a way for parents to hold on to a rural way of life.”

  

  A full house in the gym at CHSS listens as Madoc Township Councillor Carrie Smith (centre, standing, wearing white) makes a plea for our rural school and rural way of life.

• And there was more:
  • A letter from Tom Deline, the mayor of Centre Hastings (which encompasses the village of Madoc) to say that a big parcel of fully serviced land within the community is readily available as a location for a new kindergarten-to-Grade 12 school.
  • Madoc parent Kari Kramp pointing out that the estimated cost for a new school is less than half the estimated cost of repairs needed at CHSS over the next 20 years: $21 million vs. $48 million. “There are better ways to spend $27 million,” she astutely observed.
  • Concerns about asbestos in all three existing school buildings, and whether it would be a risk if renovations to make space for the Grades 7 and 8 students are done at CHSS.
  • Concerns about whether there will be the necessary facilities and programs at the high school for students with autism and other special needs.
  • A strong plea for keeping a school where children can take advantage of all the benefits of unstructured outdoor play with other kids – which leads to social development, healthy relationships and leadership skills. “What are the benefits of reducing kids’ green space?” was the question asked to the school-board representatives. No answer was offered.

Both the senior administrators and some of the trustees have said that the decision on our local schools is not a done deal – that other options can be considered. The next step in that consideration process is a meeting of the board’s student enrolment/school capacity meeting on Monday, April 10 (3:30 p.m. at the board office, 156 Ann St., Belleville; open to the public). It is then that the trustees will receive the final report and recommendation from the senior administrators, though that report is to be posted on the board’s website a few days before the meeting.

On Wednesday, April 26, also at the board headquarters in Belleville, that same committee will hear delegations from the public about the final proposal. Anyone who wants to say something to the trustees will have to register as a delegation at least five business days in advance of the meeting. The registration form is on the board’s website; here is a direct link.

On Tuesday, May 23, the committee meets again to prepare a recommendation to the full board (the 10 trustees). Again, the meeting is public.

And the final vote by those trustees is to take place Monday, June 19.

I’ll be there. Judging by the impressive turnout last Wednesday, and the impassioned pleas to the trustees to do what’s best for our kids and our community, I expect a lot of you will be too.

Hope to see you this Wednesday evening.

Here are the documents you’re apparently not supposed to see

Madoc Township Public School on a sunny late-winter day, looking like the classic Ontario rural school. Which, in fact, it is.

Important update to this post, one day later: This morning Kim Horrigan, the public school board’s manager of planning, returned the call to her I made yesterday (the one I refer to below), and we were able to chat this afternoon. Ms. Horrigan noted that the alternative recommendations made by the members of the accommodation review committee are referenced in the notes from the meeting that are posted on the board’s website here (Item 5 on Page 4). When I asked if the complete documents prepared by the committee members would be posted (explaining that people in the community have been eager to read and discuss them, especially with the final public meeting coming up on March 22), she said they would appear on the board’s website today or tomorrow. I thank her for getting back to me, and I thank the board in advance for posting these documents!

The plot thickens.

A little less than two weeks ago, I reported (here) on the startling and encouraging conclusion to the process looking at possible public-school closures and consolidations here in our area. That surprise conclusion was this: the community volunteers and school representatives who made up the committee established by the public school board stood up and said in no uncertain terms that they were not happy with the plan produced by the board’s administration, and they put forward two strong alternatives.

(Now, for those who haven’t been following this issue as closely as I and some others have, here is the short version: the board’s plan is to close Madoc Township Public School – here in tiny Queensborough, that’s our school), bus its students to space- and playground-challenged Madoc Public School, and move all Grades 7 and 8 students from both schools’ catchment areas into Centre Hastings Secondary School in Madoc. You can read my previous posts on this plan and how it’s been greeted by clicking on the “Madoc Township Public School” category on the right-hand side of the Meanwhile, at the Manse home page here.)

The first of the two recommendations from the community group (which was burdened with the clunky name “accommodation review committee”) was to restore Madoc Township Public School to its original vocation as an all-grades elementary school. When the school was built in the 1960s, amid much community excitement about getting a modern centralized educational facility, that meant Grades 1 to 8; now it would be kindergarten to Grade 8. The recommendation was backed up by all kinds of common-sense reasoning, which MTPS members of the committee read out to that March 1 meeting.

Madoc Township Public School representatives (from left, Wendy Spence, Amy Beaton and Margaret Heard) read out Recommdation #1 at the March 1 meeting.

Basically, they said, if Madoc Township were allowed to have all students in its catchment area up to Grade 8, the building would be full, and fully used. And all those kids would be able to take advantage of its wide open spaces (seven acres of playgrounds and fields), as well as its personalized attention to students, intimate and friendly country atmosphere, and first-place results in academics. In this scenario, Madoc Public School and Centre Hastings Secondary School would be consolidated into a single school in “town,” leaving our lovely rural school fully used in its unparalleled rural setting.

Representatives of all three local schools (from left, Kari Kramp from Madoc Public, Margaret Heard from MTPS and Diane Bolton from Centre Hastings Secondary) read the committee’s Recommendation #2.

The second recommended alternative to the board administration’s proposal was that a new purpose-built kindergarten-to-Grade 12 school, housing students from all three of the existing schools, be built. This is not the preferred option for us supporters of MTPS, but it definitely has its pluses: brand-new facilities, state-of-the-art accessibility and energy efficiency, and so on.

Okay, so far so good. The final accommodation review committee meeting is held Wednesday, March 1. The committee makes its two recommendations running counter to the plan from the board administration. We die-hard spectators in the audience applaud their bravery, common sense and good research. (Again, you can read all about that long evening, and even hear our applause, here.) The people from the board administration who are running this process don’t look too happy. Meeting adjourned.

And then we wait for the two alternate recommendations and their supporting documentation to show up on the board’s website. After all, the committee and the public had been promised by board officials that all the proceedings and comments and submissions at the meetings of the accommodation committee would be posted there. I know I was far from alone in being eager to see the full text of these alternate recommendations, so they could be shared around and discussed in the community ahead of the final public meeting on the issue, to be held Wednesday, March 22.

Day 1: Nothing on the board’s website. Day 2: Nothing. Day 3: Nothing. Day 4: Nothing. Day 5: Nothing.

I think you’re getting the picture.

As I write this, it’s now Day 12 since that meeting was held. Still nothing.

This morning I called the two board officials who have been leading this process, superintendent of education Cathy Portt and manager of planning Kim Horrigan, to ask why this is. I got their voicemails in both cases, and left messages with both that included my callback number. I did not get a callback. Now, that may be because it’s March Break. But March Break or not, this is an issue of critical importance in our area.

Update: Kim Horrigan called me back the next day. See note at the top of this post.

You may draw your own conclusions from all this. I will only say that I worry that in keeping under wraps these key recommendations from a committee set up by the board, the board administration is leaving not only the public as a whole in the dark – but also the publicly elected trustees who sit on the board. With the exception of local trustee Bonnie Danes, none of these 10 elected officials were at that March 1 meeting; none of them heard the recommendations read out. Yet these 10 people are the ones who hold in their hands the power to let Madoc Township Public School live or die. They are the ones who can and will decide within a very short time what the future will hold for our local schools.

So since the board isn’t releasing the documents, I am. As they say in the news business, they have been obtained by Meanwhile, at the Manse.

Please read them, all the way through. A lot of hard work, research and time went into putting them together. They point out problems in the board administration’s proposal. They put kids and community first. They are written in a spirit of optimism for the future.They make a lot of sense. There may be some references you’re not sure about; don’t worry about that – they’re minor. (If, for instance, you’re wondering what “VFA” is – it’s a big multinational company that carries out – according to its Canadian website – “end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and management” for organizations like school boards.)

Here’s Recommendation #1: Keep Madoc Township Public School open as a K-to-8 school:

And here’s Recommendation #2: Build a new K-to-12 school:

I think you should ask yourself: why does the school board’s administration apparently not want us to see these documents?

Meanwhile, a reminder that the next (and final) public meeting to discuss the future of the three Madoc-area schools takes place Wednesday, March 22, at 6:30 p.m., at Centre Hastings Secondary School. Notices placed by the board in the local newspapers say that if you wish to speak at the meeting, you must sign up to do so:

It is critical that we have a strong turnout, a solid show of support for our schools. This, people, is your chance to have your say.

Also, the subcommittee of the school board that deals with enrolment and school-capacity issues meets this coming Monday, March 20, at 3:30 p.m. at board headquarters, 156 Ann St., Belleville. There is no way to tell whether issues relating to our schools will come up, because the agenda has not yet been posted on the board’s website. (You can check here to see if it is in the coming days.) However, this is a public meeting and it sure would be great if one or more of the concerned citizens from our area were able to attend. If nothing else, it is always helpful to see the trustees and the board administrators in action and get a sense of how they operate and where they’re coming from.

It seems ever more critical that we keep an eye on things. It’s our tax dollars we’re talking about – and more importantly, our kids’ and communities’ future.

Things are about to get interesting at Queen’s Park

Queen’s Park, where tomorrow a motion to stop the destructive rural school-closure process will be debated.

How often do you tune in the proceedings of the Ontario legislature? Not very, I’m willing to bet. Can’t say as I ever have. But tomorrow (Tuesday, March 7, 2017) would be a very good time to do so. Why? Because starting sometime between 3 and 4 p.m., and running to 6 p.m., there will be debate and a vote on a motion to place a moratorium on the provincial government’s school-closing process – you know, the one that threatens the excellent rural school that serves Queensborough, Madoc Township Public School.

The motion, addressed to Premier Kathleen Wynne by Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown, reads as follows:

• Whereas, school closures have a devastating impact on local communities; and
• Whereas, children deserve to be educated in their communities and offered the best opportunity to succeed; and
• Whereas, rural schools often represent the heart of small towns across Ontario;
• Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls for an immediate moratorium on rural school closures and an immediate review of the Pupil Accommodation Review Guideline.

Now, having never in my life, to my recollection, watched the live proceedings at the Ontario legislature, I found myself wondering how I could watch this debate on a topic of such vital importance to our own community and to our rural counterparts across the province. Clicking here on the Queen’s Park website, I learned that “Sessions of the Legislature are broadcast via cable tv across Ontario.” Right. Well, here in deepest rural Ontario, we don’t have cable TV (though our friends in the village of Madoc do – the ever-excellent CHTV). So our only option is to watch a live stream online, and the place to do that is here. All I can say is: thank God we finally got decent internet service in Queensborough!

In advance of the debate, some local people have been writing letters to Premier Wynne, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, and of course their own MPPs. I urge you to check out some of the brilliant letters that the writers have shared on the Save Madoc Township Public School Facebook page, and if you feel inclined to do so, follow suit. Every letter and every phone call makes a difference. An avalanche of letters and, especially, phone calls can make a huge difference.

Jeff Leal, MPP for neighbouring Peterborough and Ontario’s minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs. If you ask me, it’s his duty to stand up in tomorrow’s debate and defend – well, rural affairs, in the form of rural schools.

To that end, the group called Rural Schools Matter, which is fighting school closures in rural Stone Mills Township a little to the east of us, is posting contact information for MPPs, notably the Liberal MPPs from rural areas, on its Facebook page. Because they’re in the party in power, those elected representatives will have more sway with the government than do MPPs from Mr. Brown’s opposition and from the New Democratic Party. Urging them to stand up to their own party’s misguided process is a very constructive thing to do. One notable name on that list is the MPP for neighbouring Peterborough (including rural Peterborough County), Jeff Leal – who also happens to be the minister of agriculture, food and rural affairs. Mr. Leal’s contact info is here. And here is a list of all the Liberal MPPs, including the premier and the education minister. Contact info for each one can be obtained by clicking on his/her name.

It will be interesting and instructive to see how the government responds to the questions that Mr. Brown and his team will pose. I will be horrified if the premier and the education minister fail to show up; that would be sheer cowardice, in my view. It will also be very interesting to see if Liberal MPPs from rural areas take a stand against their government and for their constituents.

What will be most interesting to see is whether it will make a difference.

Note: Very late last Wednesday night (actually early Thursday morning), following the final meeting of the “accommodation review committee” that was looking into our local public school board’s plan to close Madoc Township Public School, send its students to Madoc Public School and send Grades 7 and 8 students from both school areas to the local high school, I posted a report about the magnificent stand the committee had taken against the board’s plan. I promised you a fuller report later on the group’s well-reasoned rationale on why both of its alternative proposals would make more sense and be better for local children than would the board’s plan. As it turns out, I can’t give you that report yet; the committee members have passed their recommendations on to the school board, which is supposed to post it on its website. As of this writing, it hasn’t yet. Which kind of makes you wonder what the holdup is. (But that’s just me being  a bit cynical, I suppose.) Click here to get to the section of the board’s site where this information will, presumably, show up eventually.

If it doesn’t, yet another fuss needs to be kicked up.

“Keep Madoc Township Public School open as a K-to-8 school.”

Madoc Township Public School representatives (from left) Wendy Spence, Amy Beaton and Margaret Heard make a compelling case for MTPS to remain open.

Wow. Something dramatic and important happened tonight. It’s not – yet – a win in the battle to keep our local rural school open. But it’s a great step in the right direction.

Tonight was the final meeting of the Accommodation Review Committee set up by the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board to consider the board administration’s plan to close rural Madoc Township Public School, send its students to already-full Madoc Public School in “town,” and move students in Grades 7 and 8 from both those elementary schools’ areas over to Centre Hastings Secondary School.

There aren’t a lot of us who sit through these meetings, and the seating isn’t very comfortable – but we are dedicated.

I’ve reported at length on the two previous meetings of the committee, here and here. I dare say that no one in the small but dedicated group of onlookers who attend these sessions (and are not allowed to speak from our rather uncomfortable spots in the bleachers of the CHSS gym) was quite prepared for how this one ended.

I’m not going to give you every detail, because now that the meeting is over it is very late and it’s more important that I just get the news out. So here’s the short version:

The final thing the committee was given a chance to do by the board administrators, before it was disbanded at the conclusion of tonight’s session, was to recommend alternatives to the school board’s plan.

Were there alternatives? Yes there were.

The Madoc Township Public School representatives on the committee spoke first. Margaret Heard, Amy Beaton and Wendy Spence stood up together and began, in turn, to read.

Amy gave the preamble: there would be two recommended alternatives. Over to Margaret:

“Recommendation No. 1 is to keep Madoc Township Public School open as a K-to-8 (kindergarten-to-Grade-8) school,” she said, a little nervously but forcefully nonetheless.

She went on to explain the reasoning behind bringing Grades 7 and 8 back to MTPS, where those grades were taught from the school’s opening in 1961 until about 1970. She, Amy and Wendy explained a whole lot more besides, including the continuation of the recommendation, which was to consolidate space-challenged Madoc Public School and almost-half-empty Centre Hastings Secondary. I’ll give you lots more detail about all of this in my regular post next Monday. For now I’ll just say that the three women made a thorough, well-thought-out and compelling argument. I was proud and emotional as I listened – proud of their bravery in standing up to the board’s administration and saying something that the administrators almost certainly wouldn’t like; proud of the hard work and clear reasoning that had gone into their presentation; and proud of our local school and community, which bring out the best in people.

Here’s the conclusion of their presentation, from Amy – and the aftermath. I will remind you that we onlookers were supposed to be silent. We weren’t, as you’re about to hear:

Then there was another surprise. Amy and Wendy took their seats, but Margaret stayed standing and invited her school-council-chair counterparts Kari Kramp (Madoc Public School) and Diane Bolton (CHSS) to join her.

The chairs of the three local school councils – from left, Kari Kramp (Madoc Public School), Maragaret Heard (Madoc Township Public School) and Diane Bolton (Centre Hastings Secondary School) – speak as one. It was very powerful.

The three of them then presented an alternative proposal, Recommendation No. 2:

“The consolidation of Madoc Public School, Madoc Township Public School and Centre Hastings Secondary School and seeking (Ontario) Ministry of Education funding and approval to build a new K-to-12 on a new site for (the school year starting) September 2021-22.”

And they went on to make a great case for why a new school housing all students in our area would be fair, fiscally sensible, and good for the students. Again, I won’t go into all the details tonight – I’ll get you that later. (I hope to get copies of the full text of the two recommendations to share with you.)

The whole effect was of a group of committed parents and community representatives who had collaborated, done their homework, and were standing up, making some noise, and making their case.

There’s a long road still ahead. The next step is a public meeting at CHSS to be held Wednesday, March 22, 6:30 p.m. I hope that meeting will be packed to the rafters with members of the public, and that the entire community will have its say, forcefully. Then there are more school-board meetings, some of which also allow for presentations from the public. The final vote is to take place June 19.

We are a long way from being assured of victory for our precious rural school. It will take a lot of work and organization – and, yes, noise – from a lot of people to persuade our elected school trustees to vote against the recommendation of the board’s powerful administration.

But tonight was a very, very good start.