y now you will know that our "little school with the big heart" is to close in June after 73 years of service to this community.
My heart is saddened by this news for three reasons. First, at a personal level, our family has been connected to St. Margaret Mary school for the past 12 years. Beginning with Bytown Co-operative daycare, it has been 12 years of family BBQs, Christmas pageants, fundraisers, art shows, welcoming new teachers, and sending others on their way with gratitude. The kind of events to be found at St. Margaret Mary, of course, are unique in their own way and special to us.
We chose this school because we were interested in a small learning community where we felt the level of personal attention and student/teacher/parent interactions would far outweigh the absence of a gym or more modern facilities. The intimacy of this environment afforded us the opportunity to get to know one another as individuals and encouraged each other to offer his/her own contributions, which were many.
My second concern is the loss to this community of an educational alternative for our children. Hopewell Public School is a fine choice for public education. It is now the only choice in the immediate area.
The small-school, Catholic-based alternative is no longer available to us. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to speculate on the long-term effects of eliminating inner city schools. Families will continue to have children who need a school to attend. When the inner city schools are closed or beyond capacity, where will these children go?
The third reason lies in what is being done to our education system in general. Putting constraints on our children's education is extremely short sighted. As we continue to cut costs by eradicating programs, teachers and schools, we are losing our ability to ensure that the needs of our children are being adequately met. In order for all of us to reap the benefits of education, we must be willing to make the investment, even, heaven forbid, to spend money.
So I feel sadness about this decision, yet I am unwilling to move into bitterness. Change comes into all of our lives regardless of our resistance to, or support for it.
Despite my belief that this was not a wise decision, this is a change to which we will each adapt.
The spirit within each child and parent cannot be shut down. They may be able to close this school but they cannot close our hearts.