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AteToday?
Thank a Farmer.
Better Farming
February 2017
RURAL
SCHOOL
CLOSURES
– 92 students short of capacity.
The meeting became a
polite-but-pointed tag-team competi-
tion: senior board officials answered
parents’ leading questions as a panel
of trustees watched. Final decisions
are expected in March.
Audience members, who weren’t
allowed to ask questions, grumbled
amongst themselves
about the need for
changes in provincial
policy about how
these decisions are
made.
During a break,
Beavercrest advocates
approached those
from Holland-
Chatsworth to shake
hands and promise no
hard feelings. But Bea-
vercrest had an ace up
its sleeve, and every-
one knew it.
Two weeks earlier, Ashley Chap-
man, the vice-president of Chapman’s
Ice Cream based in Markdale, had
attracted
Toronto Star
news coverage
when he promised to help fund a
new, or renovated, Markdale school
as part of a new community centre.
Board officials, although non-com-
mittal, were clearly interested.
“It’s not supposed to be an against-
each-other process,” Kara Borowski, a
Holland-Chatsworth parent, said in a
subsequent interview. A small-scale
poultry farmer, market gardener and
mother of two children (the elder
attends kindergarten at
Holland-Chatsworth), Borowski said
she appreciated the Beavercrest
parents’ gesture but added, “We’re just
trying to do what we think is best for
our kids and our community.
“It’s a terrible, terrible feeling and a
terrible thing for the
board to put us up
against,” she said.
Grey Highlands
municipality council,
which manages a
sprawling population
of 9,500 covering
much of southern
Grey County, has also
become involved. The
council offered
$100,000 to cover two
years’ rent for unused
space at Beavercrest.
Grey Highlands’ administration
operates from leased office space in
an annex to a county-owned seniors’
home and is deeply engaged in efforts
to expand and revitalize Markdale.
That’s partly because of the
continuing expansion of Chapman’s
Ice Cream, now Canada’s largest – by
volume – independent ice cream
manufacturer.
But municipality officials also talk
about a growing nearby settlement of
Mennonites (who do send their
children to public schools). They cite
pending housing proposals and other
expected growth.
The Grey Highlands’s offer buys
time to sort out the details of Chap-
man’s involvement in school redevel-
opment, deputy mayor Stewart
Halliday said in a joint interview with
mayor Paul McQueen.
“With our resolution, we knew
there had to be some skin in the game
to catch their attention, and it certain-
ly has,” McQueen said.
Ashley Chapman hopes for a
project with diverse funding and
other components that may respond
to provincial policies favouring
schools as part of community hubs.
The concept could include new
recreational facilities such as a pool
and/or library, Chapman said in an
interview.
“The municipality would put up a
Mayor Paul McQueen
Beavercrest Community School in Grey County is slated for closing at the end of the
current school year – but local protests rage.