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Home My WebLink AboutThe Citizen, 2019-02-28, Page 28PAGE 28. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019. This is an open letter to Premier Doug Ford with copies to Ontario educational leaders, provincial and local, the press and others. Mr. Randy Wagler, former member and Chair of the Avon Maitland District School Board (AMDSB), has spoken out against Premier Doug Ford’s disastrous plans for Ontario’s education system. I appreciate his speaking to the news that Premier Doug Ford is considering even larger units of administration in the education system than were created with the formation of the Avon Maitland District School Board. I agree that such a move would do nothing by way of cost-saving, but would have serious impacts on the quality of that system. There appears to be no depth to the ignorance being revealed in Premier Ford’s comprehension of almost all aspects of governance, and unfortunately no one seems to be advising him of the problems that have been accruing from past experiments with amalgamations and mindless attempts at cost cutting. There are lots of bad examples flowing from the decisions of Mike Harris which resulted in long-term cost increases, in addition to disastrous effects of the quality of education and health care. Unfortunately, the years of Liberal education policies did more damage and solved few problems. In my view, the merger of the boards of Huron and Perth Counties and the City of Stratford and St. Marys illustrates the harm that accrued from that adventure. I use our Huron County experience as an example of the permanent negative fallout from that amalgamation. I use our experience in Blyth as an example, but I am confident that other communities continue to experience similar effect. The primal effect of AMDSB is a total loss of representative governance. Since the amalgamation we have had no effective representation on education matters. We are a living example of taxation without representation. The critical illustration of this arises out of the board’s response to “declining enrolment”. The action taken in this regard was the construction of a huge new school (24 rooms as I recall it), the Maitland River Elementary School, and the move of Grade 7 and 8 pupils to the renovated F.E. Madill Secondary School. That does not appear to be a logical way to address a declining enrolment. What it did was create a classroom glut which then needed to be addressed by closing numerous reasonably well populated schools. It was a shady deal any way one looks at it. Yes, there was initial talk about the possible need to close some schools, but in order to make the need convincing, they had to create more empty space to justify the new building. The board did not set out to fix declining enrolment; they used that cause as a way to justify the “necessity” of giving Huron a big new school to match that other school which had been built in Perth. The only way any school board could get away with that kind of manipulation was to play on the distance that developed between the board and the communities. That is the primary lesson we need to take in evaluating the Premier’s latest proposal. Increase the distance across the areas of administration and you can get away with any policy no matter how non-sensible it may be, since most people do not feel they have access to anyone in a position of power and accountability. I live almost next door to Minister of Education Lisa Thompson’s Huron office. She helped us enormously when we were fighting the closing of our Blyth Public School while in opposition. I have no idea how she is fitting into the madness that is now coming out of Queen’s Park. So, back to my Blyth example. We have no school; it was stolen from us under false pretences. The board ignored most of the requirements for closing our school in the new guidelines for school closures. They failed to consider the potential effects on the local economy and the effects on the community. They claimed the poor condition of the building which was due to the deliberate withholding of minor routine maintenance such a repainting around the exterior framing of the windows. The boiler was in need of minor maintenance which did not call for replacement as claimed. Most serious of all, most of the required public meetings were held without any announcement in the press. Of the three meetings, only the second one was announced in the local papers. By the time I and other residents found out that our school was in jeopardy, none of us were allowed to speak or raise questions because we did not sign up for the initial meeting. Our school board representative has never, to my knowledge, met with any Blyth group, she has never explained the board’s policies or decisions to the community, and she has never apologized to us. Distance, it seems, eliminates the need to confer, discuss, explain, or apologize. A truly representative board would not pull stunts like this, and if they were to try this they would not get away with it. We have had at least one amalgamation that worked and worked well. It was a necessary change specifically tailored to improving secondary education back in the 1940s. This took place when I was still in elementary school in 1946. We had a Continuation School in Blyth which provided Grades 9 to 12. It had a staff of one principal and two other teachers. There was no way that such a small staff could adequately cover the required range of subject matter. In September of 1946, the Continuation School was closed and secondary students travelled by bus to Clinton, joining the Grade 13 students who had been attending that school for many years. Not ideal, but it worked well. The range of subjects were presented more competently, with more qualified teachers across the range of subjects. We still had local board members who were known in our community, knew that community and were responsive to local concerns, and they had direct input into the operation of the school. On the other hand, Harris’s push for municipal amalgamations probably could have been more effective had they been done in a more thoughtful manner and not under silly time pressure schedules. 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