Hint to the Regina Board of Education: Children may go to school, and a group of fish may travel in a school, but that’s where the similarities end. Children are not sardines, and should not be packed as tightly as possible into schools so that a financial balance sheet can look the way you and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation prefer it to appear.
One thing I found particularly offensive at this evening’s meeting, is that one of the board members actually listed the CTF (www.taxpayerblog.com) as a source of input for the proposed school closures, and failed to note the 3000+ signatures on the petitions presented by Real Renewal. I wonder where the CTF’s 3000+ signatures were on a legal document, indicating they have similar standing in the Regina community? I didn’t get a chance to ask Lee Harding this question, but he’s welcome to respond here should he read this.
-Lee watches from the crowd at the meeting
One board member, Dr. Young, went so far to say Usher was a fantastic school, before explaining that a summary paneled from a high school student clinched her decision to vote for closure. Way to base your vote on the opinion of a child, instead of something novel like maybe the EVIDENCE. What a shameful way to pin this decision on a kid who thought he was being consulted, not held up as someone to blame for this travesty of democracy!
3 voted against the further removal of (Usher school) public infrastructure, and a destruction of a community, and 4 voted in favour of closure. A member of the crowd asked, “What’s wrong with the communities we have?” to the Board’s point that school closures would create new communities. Note how they didn’t say, “better and new” communities.
-West, Saylor, Conway
Talking with one of the occasional no-voters on the Usher closure motion, Barb Saylor, I heard that the Board’s “Renewal” plan is “not set in stone”. I explained that when decisions planned for 10 years down the road depend on something decided 2 years down the road, once you take that action in 2 years, you’ve set in stone the action in 10. Her only defense was to say she disagrees with my view. I guess that’s a polite way of saying, you’re right, but the Board’s appearance of the plan being dynamic is more important than reality. Besides, I explained, it doesn’t matter that the population and other details may change in 2 years. The plan as it stands today is fundamentally flawed. It puts in motion the closure of about a dozen schools when the Regina housing market confirms that our population is booming! There’s simply no way to justify this phony “Renewal plan” on a financial planning, infrastructure planning, or human cost scale.
In fairness, Barb explained the Board’s hands are tied. They can’t run a deficit budget (provincial law forbids it), and they are simply not given enough money (by the province) to maintain the school buildings or small class sizes, let alone improve them. Why is their best hope for more money going to come from reducing their infrastructure costs? Won’t the province realize that it costs less money to fund fewer buildings, and then CUT THEIR FUNDING FURTHER?
The Board is collectively a terrible infrastructure manager, on top of failing to defend the educational interests of Regina children. (Also, Vice Chair Schenher arrogantly proclaimed that their plan should be the model for all of Canada!) They are protecting their own jobs, instead of forcing a move from the Sask Party government that would increase education funding to prevent closures (a promise the Party already made in November!). They are moving further in the wrong direction, and dragging Regina down with them. They should be taking a stand against the provincial government, and instead they are standing against the parents who elected them to represent their children’s best educational needs! Shameful! They put the CTF on par with the signatures of thousands of Regina parents and stakeholders. What a disgrace this is.
One rumour worth considering is that there is a real estate profit motive behind liberating these school properties from the public ownership. (Indeed Dr. Conway of the Board mentioned a rumour about one school closed today, already being slated for demolition this July.) They’ll revert to City handling, and then where? Toronto recently sold a property across from the tourist ROMuseum to a McDonald’s for millions of dollars. Privatize public space for mega-dollars. Want to bet that Usher ends up refining oil and gas in 10 years? Don’t do it, here’s the map that shows why you’ll likely lose that bet.
Mr. West had his apparently delicate sensibilities hurt by (The Regina Mom) and The Prairie Dog (newspaper) when they suggested that the Board was acting in a racist way by closing schools that primarily affect Aboriginal (and impoverished) schoolchildren. He also tried to make a joke about someone apparently calling him a “bastard” at a previous meeting. No one laughed. Judging by the way he voted and spoke to the issues tonight, I was not impressed. I also didn’t care for the Chair or Vice Chair’s debate points, and neither did the crowd who sometimes couldn’t contain their guffaws, or angry interruptions (which were not encouraged at this rubber stamp meeting).
After the meeting I took some video of Usher [and other school's] students being interviewed and crying at the upsetting news that their school has been taken away from them. I also spoke with a man who personally polled “800″ residents in the city, and says most will move their tax dollars away from funding the public school system that has betrayed them. One man, obviously feeling betrayed, confronted Board members after the meeting, and said the platform the member had run on was a lie. Elections roll around next year (so I heard), so I think it’s time for a new Board who can deal with Saskatchewan being a “have” province, and a city with an increasing population.
UPDATE: NewsTalk has more. Robert Usher Collegiate, Stewart Russell Elementary and Herchmer Community are all closing.
Another man after the meeting asked the Board chair to confirm that no Board member would profit in any way from the sale of the school properties. I didn’t hear a confirmation, but that doesn’t mean one wasn’t given and I perhaps missed it.
@hotmail.com
![[EFC Blue Ribbon - Free Speech Online]](http://www.efc.ca/images/efcfreet.gif)
RBE runs with an axe « the regina mom | 12-Mar-08 at 12:31 am | Permalink
[...] escapades on the Library Board a few years ago (when they tried to close inner city libraries). Saskboy reports on the chat he had with her after the [...]
the regina mom | 12-Mar-08 at 12:44 am | Permalink
It’s weird that West named the Dog. I do have an article coming out in the next issue but I have only told a select few about that. I did cc the Dog and numerous other media when I sent the board my post about the overtones of racism and classism.
Anyway, they will be de-elected come ‘09 and I will help to ensure that. Know any good folks who will run? They need to start gearing up now!
Saskboy | 12-Mar-08 at 12:59 am | Permalink
Things that I noticed about the board:
They were white, entirely. I don’t normally look for race, but with the discussion of racism it popped into my field of view.
They were old. I have a hard time believing any of them have a current stake, or a FUTURE stake in the state of these schools. I could easily be wrong, and will stand corrected but clearly Boards such as this are going to be stacked by people with more education and more free time than average parents of school age children.
A blind monkey with a pencil would get the right answer at least half of the time. So why can’t the RBE? Something is pulling on some pretty awful strings, there’s no other way to explain this kind of terrible management of our educational resources. Possibly they’ve been fed wrong information, but you’d think they’d at least double guess when presented with THOUSANDS of signatures on a stack of petitions, crying [teenage] children in the room, and an angry crowd without enough chairs in the room to accommodate everyone. I saw the same BS from a Division Board about 15 years ago in Wood Mountain, and it’s happening here again. I NEVER thought it would happen in a large city; that part was truly baffling. The real estate explanation is the only argument I’ve heard that is a plausible motivation for this.
Saskboy | 12-Mar-08 at 1:03 am | Permalink
“Anyway, they will be de-elected come ‘09 and I will help to ensure that. Know any good folks who will run? They need to start gearing up now!”
I’m sure the CTF and Chamber of Commerce will try to send campaign resources in the direction of closure friendly candidates, so it will be an uphill battle. It must be, look at the Board we ended up with for right now?
I’m not sure I have enough contacts willing to run for a Board position, but I’ll try to find people. If I have to run myself, that’ll be a failure on my part, because there must be a parent who would be more knowledgeable than me, out there.
Leslea Mair | 12-Mar-08 at 10:11 am | Permalink
The truly heartbreaking thing about this is that it isn’t entirely tied to provincial funding. Blaming the province is a cop-out — they could ask for more funding from the city, and they would get it. Yes, the mill rate would increase, but I’m fairly certain my property taxes are going to go up following the housing boom and what better priority for our tax dollars is there?
I’m also slightly offended that they only mentioned being called racist by Regina Mom and the Dog — I told them so to their faces last week on behalf of Real Renewal.
I’ve often defended Regina to people in other places. I don’t think I can do that right now.
the regina mom | 12-Mar-08 at 3:08 pm | Permalink
Say, does anyone know who the white-haired fellow with the red face sitting at the opposite end of the table from Conway is? When I asked someone at the meeting, she said, “Security.”
I laughed, but then later on, I noted a wire coming out of his pants pocket and up under his suit jacket. He stared at me a lot during the meeting so I stared back and mouthed at him to stop looking at me.
But jeez, paid security at a school board meeting! What next? The military on the playgrounds?!?
Saskboy | 12-Mar-08 at 3:46 pm | Permalink
Hey Regina Mom, give them some credit, they didn’t have the RCMP taser anyone afterall ;-)
I too recognized him, but can’t remember who/what he’s about. Maybe security, but I think I’ve seen him before so probably something to do with Education provincially. And the woman to the right of Young looked very familiar as well; and unhappy. Unfortunately I didn’t get positive vibes from them. Maybe they were having bad days. Couldn’t be as bad as those poor families with no schools are going to have for a year or more.
Jaybird | 12-Mar-08 at 3:54 pm | Permalink
Maybe parents should pay tuition for their children, and there would be lots of extra money to spend on old schools that are falling apart.
Chad Moats | 12-Mar-08 at 4:08 pm | Permalink
As Jaybird has illustrated so well, it is the beginning of an attack on publicly funded education. Next thing, they’ll be talking about school vouchers.
Saskboy | 12-Mar-08 at 4:14 pm | Permalink
Tuition could possibly work Jaybird, except I think it would be better if most post secondary students didn’t have to pay as much tuition as they do, so advocating it for primary and secondary students might make me a hypocrite. The reason I wouldn’t back that is because I know what would happen to children with parents too poor to pay the tuition. Already the expenses like stupid TI graphing calculators are offloaded onto parents. You can’t make it a crime to not send your children to school, and not provide the means for a broke family to educate their kids. What are we going to do, take those parents to court, and make them lose another day’s wage for disobeying?
And the reason the buildings are falling apart is explained very well in the link I provided. Here it is again for those who missed it:
http://www.1337hax0r.com/?p=657
Incidentially, the nonsense at Chalk River Nuclear Plant is very related to this issue as well. It’s institutionalized mismanagement of infrastructure done to justify political firings, closures, and “renewal” AKA selling off of public property.
With that knowledge, it’s harder to look at the crumbling schools (and hospitals, and roads, and bridges) of our country as money pits. They are employment opportunities, while we embark on a plan of REAL renewal and infrastructure maintenance.
Incidentally, the only thing I completely respect Jack Layton for, is his idea to renovate all public buildings. There are a lot of jobs to be created in renewing our public assets. And it will work economically so long as people VALUE those assets.
Jaybird | 12-Mar-08 at 5:23 pm | Permalink
“The reason I wouldn’t back that is because I know what would happen to children with parents too poor to pay the tuition.”
That is a very good point Saskboy. Half of my property taxes go to the public school board even though I don’t have kids and I am OK with that. It would be better to keep it tuition free, but then we have to be more frugal with the money and close schools when it will cost less money to build a new one instead of keeping it open. I think some of the schools (not all of them) have gotten to the point where they were unsafe to put people into. There are plans to build new schools in new communities like Harbour Landing, but those schools will be a long time coming…. maybe too long.
The school board needs to hold lotteries like the Hospital Home Lottery or the home lottery that the Regina Public Library has put on. I think lots of people would support a lottery when they know the money would be put toward upgrading existing schools.
Jan Johnstone | 12-Mar-08 at 6:15 pm | Permalink
“Why is their best hope for more money going to come from reducing their infrastructure costs? Won’t the province realize that it costs less money to fund fewer buildings, and then CUT THEIR FUNDING FURTHER?”
Saskboy, you asked a good question here and you should ask the trustees, or the director of education for the Regina School Board for the answer. And yes, they will be able to answer that.
I can give you some ideas although I am in Ontario, but I believe most school boards across Canada are funded similarly.
First, all school boards across Canada are mainly declining in student population, particularly in rural and remote locations, but also in urban cores. This should not be a surprise as our national population is also declining so this shows up with the number students who occupy desks!
Although Regina and Sask population may be increasing, school boards are funded by the number of students, and not by buildings, and that is the key part to your answer – education funding formula. Note here, I did not say school funding formula, but education!
Generally speaking, funding for education has moved to this model with some variations, depending on the province, so in Sask. your school boards receive funding from the prov and municipal coffers so that you pay a taxpayer millrate.
But overall education policy is controlled provincially with some leeway because of this millrate. So to get your answers, ask about the “funding formula” and I am sure you will get your answer. Having more students in one building means that the board isn’t paying for operating, for example, two buildings, but ends up getting the same amount of money, and thus could potentially offer more programs with the additional money saved from the school closure but reinvested into the remaining school. It also could plow money into better infrastructure.
Also, you might want to look at how schools/boards are funded overall? Do various sorts of systems get funded, for example, religious schools/boards, and so on? If so, you are funding duplicate systems which waste money by servicing and competing for the same declining student population.
I would strongly suggest that funding it attached to the student here, so no matter how much your population grows, if they are not reproducing offspring, well you get my drift. And incidently, nationally, we have not been replacing our numbers except through immigration, so what you see happening here, is happening right across Canada.
And suggesting that trustees would gain monetarially is quite farfetched. Most trustees make little money in this political position, and would have declare a pecuninary interest if they had any stack in the game. If they didn’t declare, like any corp board member, they could be removed from office.
themusicgod1 | 14-Mar-08 at 4:41 am | Permalink
This post should *really* refer to your previous post on the matter, at the very least, and ideally would point out more clearly that
* Regina is growing, and can expect a new boom of children in the next decade or two, as new, childless couples from alberta find houses here.
* We have essentially reduced our capability to handle any kind of influx of children, now.
I can only guess this will be followed by an encouragement of private and homeschooling.
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy :: A.S.S.P.O.T.Y Award Voting | 15-Jan-09 at 9:02 pm | Permalink
[...] Saskboy – “Because Children are Sardines” http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2008/03/11/because-children-are-sardines-usher-school-and-more-are-clo... [...]
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy :: ASSPOTY 2008 Winners for Super Post | 24-Jan-09 at 10:42 pm | Permalink
[...] Saskboy – “Because Children are Sardines” http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2008/03/11/because-children-are-sardines-usher-school-and-more-are-clo... [...]
Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy :: I Walked To School Both Ways Up Mountains… | 08-Jun-09 at 7:46 am | Permalink
[...] courageous people willing to walk to school both ways end up on the board of education. Because the current batch don’t inspire confidence in me. Here’s some of their previous [...]