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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2015-06-04, Page 5PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 2015. Spring rally held Future school plans may not benefit Blyth: Vodden Preparation The Brussels Legion held a fish fry dinner on Saturday night and Barry Currie, left, and Murray Lowe, right, were kept busy all night preparing fish on a rainy night in Brussels for the dozens of diners who found their way to the Branch for a home-cooked dinner. (Vicky Bremner photo) Richmonds defend work of Hawley THE EDITOR, The Avon Maitland District School Board has announced through Superintendent of Schools, Mike Ash, that there will be no accommodation reviews in the school system next year. In the meantime, they will be studying the trends. He also indicates that when they do conduct the next Accommodation Review, it will be done under the new guidelines put out by the Education Ministry. This will be a new approach for this board in that in the last review they ignored at least 75 per cent of the earlier guidelines. The early guidelines required council representation on the Accommodation Review Committee (ARC), but we had none. In the new guidelines, there is a requirement for the board to involve the local municipality, but the municipality is not allowed to comment on the value of the existing school to the community. That was one of the topics that was supposed to be part of the review, but the board staff decided to ignore that rule. The most disturbing part of Ash’s announcement is that he is keeping a bead on Clinton and Hullett schools. Clinton is where most Blyth students go for secondary school and Hullett is where most Blyth students go for elementary school. Neither of these schools is in our municipality of North Huron: they are in Central Huron. So why am I concerned? It seems to me that Blyth students and their parents could be shafted all over again, similar to the way they had their Blyth Public School taken away from them. I hope that this time, we as the Blyth community take a deep interest in what is being done for the education of our Blyth children. Our past record was not great. Although we had a 1,639-signature petition to save our school, the North Huron Council of that period took no interest whatsoever in the closure of the school. No Blyth business people sat on the ARC committee (not exactly their fault; they were not invited and did not know that the guidelines required them to be involved). Some local energy got diverted to the idea of closing our school for the idea of a model 22nd century school that proved to be an idle dream. A small number of parents spent a lot of time on the ARC, but they had no concept of the way they were being manipulated by the board administrators and even by the Ministry of Education. As has been the case for years, Blyth has never had the support of a true representative on the Avon Maitland Board. It is not too early to begin thinking of how Blyth, as a community, should organize itself to formulate and put forward a plan for our children’s education. We need parents especially because they are closest to the issues, but we also need the adult community to take the matter seriously, and we need North Huron council, in concert with the Central Huron Council where the current schools exist. We need people to probe the policies and plans of the school board and those of their senior staff. Past experience indicates that plans might not necessarily be beneficial to Blyth. Fool us twice; shame on us! Brock Vodden The spring rally of the Huron Perth Women’s Presbyterial was held on May 11 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Stratford. The theme was “Unique You – Where do you fit into God’s Plan?” Prayer opened the rally followed by welcome by the host minister Rev. Hugh Jones and St. Andrew’s president Carol McEwin. Hymn #411 was sung followed by the WMS purpose. Worship was conducted by Listowel. Morning speaker was Matthew Foxall- Mission Trip and Youth Mission Co- ordinator. He spoke and showed pictures of his experiences from the many different countries he had visited. Reports were given from the Synodical held in Brantford. Gathering music opened the afternoon program followed by the afternoon speaker Steve Stacey. He is the director of Local Community Food Centre in Stratford. Tours can be taken to see what this facility offers. Roll call “What makes your WMS unique” was answered by the groups present. Courtesies were given by the Mitchell WMS followed by hymn #825 and prayer. THE EDITOR, We are writing in reference to the article in last week’s Citizen regarding the suggestion of our present Huron East Economic Development Officer (EDO) position be dissolved. We have personally been involved in working alongside the EDO on a number of community revitalization and betterment projects. For the past number of years we have found our EDO to be hard working, knowledgeable and passionate with creative and innovative ideas. Our community has seen prominent growth and beautification with new businesses, window murals, walking trails, the farmers’ market and promotional materials. Furthermore, after the heartbreak of losing the Brussels Public School (BPS) we have seen a positive revitalization of this property. In closing, we feel that council should give deep consideration to the benefits of the EDO position. Sincerely, Bob and Rene Richmond. Annual General Meeting Monday, June 15, 2015 Social 5:30 p.m. Meeting 6:00 p.m. Wroxeter Community Hall, Wroxeter Please RSVP to Dorothy 519-357-3562 Ext. 101 Downtown Blyth 519-523-4740 Bainton’s Old Mill Motorcycle Chaps Letters to the Editor