- Lorelie Spencer

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I would like to thank the participants in the Accommodation Review process for their professionalism and willingness to listen to everyone's positions with an open mind.
There is something to be said about commitment and passion. It's why all of us are in this room today, be it as an elected Official or parent. It is because we care.
In my Professional life, I am an Urban and Regional Planner. A Profession requiring long-term outlook and strategic planning in order to make recommendations to decision makers that reflect the matter at hand and, most importantly the context of the matter in future. Decisions must have regard to their long-term implication. In this Profession I have to address risk management, ensure the preservation of resources and direct growth and development to areas where development is appropriate. Long term planning is not optional. It is necessary.
It is disappointing to say the least that Derby School is back in this position, just over two years after the Board made the decision to keep the school open for five more years. Further interesting is the fact that thebudgetary issues related to the impending need to close schools was present at the time the decision was made. Although the Board claims they have been advised by the Ministry that they need to immediately cut costs, it seems that the Board has lost sight of their obligation to the Community and the need for long-term goals to maintain an appropriate school budget and maintain the facilities required for students to succeed. To speak to one of your own priorities as listed in your own Multi-year Strategic Plan which states that you are required to be held accountable for the responsible stewardship of resources.
The Derby Public School Community cares about their students, cares about retaining our future generations in a rural setting and care about the Staff and Teachers that serve those students and mentor them every day. Schools are the centre of community, particularly in a rural setting where workdays do not run on a typical 9-5 schedule, where parents help other parents out during peak farming seasons (which, let's face it, can be any time of the year). Where there is an understanding of the importance of knowing where our food comes from and understanding the value of the work that goes into a day.
Derby Public School is within a defined Settlement Area in a central location to Owen Sound and the farming community. This is a school that holds many children of parents and grandparents who also graduated from Derby. It has immense open space and despite what the Watson Report will lead you to believe it is a beautiful school and a great community. That being said, there was an opportunity for the Board to consider a new rural build. There was an opportunity for the Board to spend serious time thinking about the long-term implications of the new funding model from the Province and to consider the preservation of rural schools and review the schools in the appropriate context. That did not happen here. So Sullivan, Hepworth, Tara and Holland Centre are likely to find themselves in an accommodation review in the future. It could have been done the first time, properly, with long-term strategic perspective but it was not. The Board chose to target Derby Public School and pull it in with urban based schools that do not share a common denominator.
This Accommodation Review process isn't looking to a long-term answer and including Derby into the short-term solution is evidence of that. That makes me think that somewhere along the line, the passion and commitment from the Board has been lost. There's no mandate for the decision makers (trustees) to attend the ARC Meetings. Although some of you chose to, you should be mandated to. If you wish to be in the position of making a decision as an elected official, it is your job to participate in the process, the entire process.
The Staff recommendation to move a portion of students from Derby to other schools is not the option that the Community would prefer, particularly in light of the timing suggested by the Board. In the interest of the community, the Board needs to move all of the students from Derby as a whole and consolidate our community with Arran Tara Elementary. Permit the parents to transfer their children elsewhere for their own family needs. This can easily be completed by providing communal bus stops in certain locations where you propose to change the boundaries to accept students to Arran Tara.
The influx of students to a new school has an impact, not only on the community you are displacing, but the receiving school as well. A transition period is required to permit the consolidation of the two school communities. To permit the Staff allocation, the adjustment of all students in the school (new and old) and to create a new and cohesive environment for students to excel and achieve the type of test scores that Derby and Tara have historically garnered for the Board in the past.
These students are great kids, both Arran Tara and Derby, but to expect that the influx of an entire school into another within a span of four months is unrealistic and unfair to the communities. Both communities need to have the opportunity to consolidate the Staff, Administration and Students into a new environment, spatially and physically. The Board needs to provide a sufficient transition period and offer events to support the amalgamation of the schools. Support and encourage a new school spirit and engage the children in activities to consider a new mascot or school name. In other words, rebuild the communities so that can begin a new school year with cohesion.
I would be remiss if I did not point out that the Watson Report has been out for a long period of time, yet the actions taken to deal with the budget and funding from the Province are coming to the forefront as immediate actions necessary now. The funding model changes did not happen overnight. This isn't a new issue. However it is an issue that is the responsibility of the Trustees and Board Staff to comment upon and speak to. To act on behalf of the community and get an injustice rectified.

From a land use planning perspective, the Provincial Policy Statement is a document that Municipal authorities are required to 'be consistent with' in land use planning decision making matters. It speaks to the preservation of agricultural lands and directing growth to urban areas. It also speaks to the preservation of community. The County of Grey and the Township of Georgian Bluffs define Kilsyth (where Derby Public School is located) as a settlement area and even has lands set aside within the urban boundary for further growth. This potential for growth has not been assessed by the Board from a long term planning perspective. In fact, there seems to be no planning rationale to the decision to close the school beyond numbers.
We all know that closing a school does not provide immediate cost savings and attempting to transition schools in the rapid manner proposed in likely to increase costs over the long term.

It seems ironic, that today the media released information from the Bruce Grey Catholic DistrictSchool Board which indicates that St. Mary's is at capacity. Their own Watson Report predicts a steady increase in enrolment over the next 15 years and they will be in a position to start looking for a build site to accommodate the capacity. Interesting still, that as much as the Board doesn't find a correlation between the declining enrolment from the BWDSB to the steady increase in the BGCDSB, there is one. The population of the City of Owen Sound has not increased, in fact according to Census data, the population of the City actually decreased between 2006-2011 by 0.5%. In fact, the Board should be concerned about the loss of student to the BGCDSB in the event of the closure of Derby Public School.

If you had to live your life over again, what would you do differently? It is a question often asked. You signed up for this but I highly doubt that you are achieving your election goals with the position you are in today. The Board needs to start talking and get the Province to listen to you. Stop resigning to the position that school closure is the only position you can take. Ignoring Derby School and the funding model that did not support it was your job to tackle. You needed to address the issue head on long before now.

Regardless, this is the time to start standing up for what is right. Derby is a talent you will lose if you don't give our community the appropriate transition period to succeed in a consolidation with Arran Tara. If you close the school, do it the right way. Give a fair and equitable opportunity for consolidation for the teachers, administration, and the children. We are a community that cares. We are a community that gives. It is your job to ensure that you make the decision that is not simply focused on numbers. Sadly, if a decision to immediately close the school for this coming school year occurs you will lose an asset to the Community. I am certain you will regret it when the long-term strategic approach becomes a requirement of the Province to meet their funding model. It is then that you will see you that missed an opportunity to build on an existing asset in the community.
I implore you to do the equitable right thing. Give this community the same timeline and respect to serve our children, their teachers and administration the respect of succeeding and continuing as we have all along. Derby's test scores are not an anomaly. They are the reality of a great group of teachers, administration and students of this community. You know this to be the case. Despite the ever challenging political environment we live in, now is the time to make the decision that is right and looking to a long-term perspective, not a short term solution.