With all the players selected - the school closing PAR committee begins its work.

News 100 blueBy Pepper Parr

February 1, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

 

They don’t get to make a decision – they are asked to advise, the decision lies with Board of Trustees

The (PARC) Program Accommodation Review Committee is to act as the official conduit for information shared between Trustees and school communities

They are expected to provide feedback on the option considered in Director’s Preliminary Report They can seek clarification on Director’s Preliminary Report and provide new accommodation options and supporting rationale.

PARC Jan 27 full group

The members of the PARC getting introduced to the rules they are going to work within.

The end result is a big one for Burlington and people in the communities that will experience the change. Both Central and Pearson high schools believe they have strong arguments for being kept open – both arguments seem to rest on the way the board has changed boundaries.

The committee that is going to produce a report is made up of representatives from the seven high schools as well as advisors.  They are expected to stick to a framework that has been given to them.  Will they do that?

PARC framework

Criteria the PARC is expected to adhere to.

Set out below are the names of the representatives for each school as well as the email address you can reach them at – a single email address gets your comments to both representatives for a school;

HDSB Parents at PARC 1 Jan 26-17

Parents who want to ensure that the school in their neighborhood is not closed.

Aldershot HS: Email: aldershotparc@hdsb.ca
Steve Cussons and Eric Szyiko

Burlington Central HS: Email: centralparc@hdsb.ca
Ian Farwell and Marianne Meed Ward

Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS: Email: dfhaydenparc@hdsb.ca
Matthew Hall and Tricia Hammill

Lester B. Pearson HS: Email: lbpearsonparc@hdsb.ca
Steve Armstrong and Cheryl De Lugt

M.M. Robinson HS: Email: mmrobinsonparc@hdsb.ca
Marie Madenzides and Dianna Bower

Nelson HS: Email: nelsonparc@hdsb.ca
Kate Nazar and Rebecca Collier

PARC Jan 27 - school reps

School parent association representatives worked at a different table for part of the meeting.

Robert Bateman HS” Email: rbatemanparc@hdsb.ca
Lisa Bull and Sharon Picken

They meet for their next meeting as a group on Thursday evening.

It is too early to tell if the report they come out with will be a unanimous document or if some people will want to issue a minority report.

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3 comments to With all the players selected – the school closing PAR committee begins its work.

  • Yvonne

    they will stall and delay this report till the next Municipal election ………..lets just all sit back and watch the silence

  • Lynn

    The PAR Committee doesn’t get to write a report.

    So far, 4 months has been spent on nothing but the Board telling the public about the “process” ad nauseum, while pretending to engage the public, but not engaging them one iota since the public is never allowed to speak. Their attempt at a public survey was a complete disaster and told them nothing. So 4 months on process, one hour on the PAR members speaking about options, in two separate groups so not everyone hears everything, and one group had their entire discussion hijacked by one or two loud people who were stuck on one issue the whole night. A complete and utter waste of time.

    Up next, Working Meeting #2. Presumably by the end of this it will be 750 hours at least of talking about the process and 4-5 hours of the committee trying to accomplish something, while surrounded by misinformation and constantly changing board data. And at the end they can’t make a recommendation or do anything anyway. People should google the Ontario Alliance for School Closures and read and weep on how this is happening all across Ontario. Oh, and that framework you speak of? The Board gave them the framework, talked about it at the beginning of Meeting #1, and then never touched it all night.

  • Concerned Parent

    The “alternative facts” that were thrown around at the first working meeting of the PARC were ones that could have been uttered by Trump himself – here are just a few heard from the gallery: the Aldershot Principal saying that her school has an ESL program (confirmed with the Board that it does not); that Central cannot be made accessible (it can, as my Book Club friend and Central alumni said “there has been a closed-in elevator shaft in Central since I went there”; that it would be “not human” to move Special Needs students from Bateman to a brand new wing to be built at MM Robinson as the “students have such strong bonds with their teachers and have a wonderful space with all sorts of specialized equipment” (a newly built wing could be accommodated through money gained by closing one school, teachers in any specialized program move with the program, and the Spec Ed area at Bateman was moved to Bateman’s basement in 2004 from Brock when Brock closed, so it could be moved again, and with most of those Spec Ed students living north of the QEW MMR would be closer for most). An altogether ridiculous exercise being played out under the guise of “gathering public input”. The public cannot provide input at these meetings, can only watch, and can barely hear what is being said. Wondering if this is by design to keep the public in the dark?