If you have read my other blog items, you may have gathered that I am fed up with the antics of the Avon Maitland District School Board, and their decision to close the Blyth Public School. I admit that it is not just the Board that is at fault, but they have not even had the decency to speak to our community and tell us why they reached that devastating conclusion. The representative for North Huron has also been strangely absent, but of course it may be that she does not know where Blyth is. In any case, it doesn’t really matter; she is of no use to us anyway since she has done nothing but harm to this community.
This kind of bureaucratic assault is becoming increasingly common in fields other than education. We were dragged into an amalgamation with Wingham without consultation. Our own village council did that to us. Many of us were of the view that if amalgamation was obligatory, the smart move would be to create a single tier municipality of the entire county. Our local councillors had decided that at the public meeting, they would allow no discussion of single tier. There was no consultation – only an announcement that we were getting hitched to Wingham. A bad choice for Blyth. Even if we had good representatives on Council, we would still have a diluted representation!
Our health care system has taken some equally negative turns. We had the Community Care Access Centre for Huron for a short time. Then the directive came from on high that Huron CCAC must merge with the Perth CCAC. Once again our local representation was watered down. From personal experience as a patient returning home in Huron from a Perth hospital, the merger was a disaster. From what I hear the service has never recovered at least for Huron patients.
People in the Ministry of Health seem to have a great sense of humour. They have made us part of a LOCAL planning area which extends some 470 km from Tobermory in the north to Lake Erie in the south. Surely they are joking when they call this a local network. On their website they refer to their current board members as LOCAL people. The closest person to us is from Stratford. There are no representatives from Huron county on this board. Many other counties have no representation either. These strangers are charged with making critical, strategic decisions about the health care of our community and of the health facilities in this area. This does not instill confidence.
Business has provided all kinds of evidence that mergers, alliances, amalgamations, acquisitions most often fail. A few years ago, a study revealed that almost 70% of mergers of two or more companies end up in either a serious decline in productivity or an outright failure.
We have a local recent example. A longstanding Huron County heavy equipment business after many decades as an industrial leader, was purchased by a huge international corporation. After a very few years of operation, this company decides to pull out, leaving hundreds of people out of work, and a huge empty place in this county.
That action by that company is almost identical to what AMDSB did to Blyth. They took over our school system and then shut down our school. The company will make their graders elsewhere and AMDSB will educate our children –but elsewhere. Huron County means nothing to that company. Blyth means nothing to AMDSB, Southwest LHIN, CCAC, and I am not sure about North Huron.
The analogies are obvious and accurate.
In my next blog item, I am going to tackle (but probably not solve) the problem of creating a strategy to “make the bums pay” for trampling on us. A good dose of public embarrassment might work in some cases. We'll need a different strategy for those who are without conscience or shame.
About a remarkable Ontario village
Showing posts with label Huron County. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huron County. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Small Towns Under Siege
A series of discussions about small town issues
Small communities right across Canada are under siege. They are assailed from all directions and from many sources. They are at risk economically, culturally, medically, socially, politically, educationally, and some of the troubles come from within the communities themselves.
While we occasionally hear our politicians declare their concern about “protecting small town Canada” (usually when talking to a small town audience), they continue to enact policies that damage small towns, and ignore opportunities to protect them.
While Jan and I were driving the other day, we got to talking about the negative things that are happening now and those that took place in the past. Sometimes you need to list these things in order to realize the extent of the problem. As we talked, we saw the items as the result of trends. The over-riding trend has been that of control being moved progressively farther away from our community.
Take education for example.
When this community was first formed in the mid 1800s, there was very little money available, but the people found enough money to build a school and to hire teachers for it. The question never arose as to “whether we could afford it or not”.
In 1896 the village opened a modern two-storey school to house the Blyth Public School (Grades 1 to 8) and the Blyth Continuation School (Grades 9 to 12).
In 1946 district high school boards were formed, with one representative from Blyth on that board, and the Blyth Continuation School was closed. Students from 9 to 13 were bussed to Clinton to attend the newly named Clinton District Collegiate Institute. Blyth had an elected representative on that board.
Some time later the Huron County Board of Education was formed, and more recently Huron County and Perth County boards were combined to form the Avon Maitland District School Board. If there is a board member who represents Blyth, no one seems to know who that is. In any case, if there is such a person, he or she will be representing so many communities that none of them will be truly represented.
Now because of declining enrolment across the county, it has apparently become too expensive to educate Blyth children within Blyth, according to the AMDSB, so the school is likely to be closed permanently. This is a terrible blow to Blyth as a community. Many of the ramifications of this latest move is against the wishes of nearly all the parents and the members of the community. There is a deep anger throughout the community about this unfortunate turn of history. But that remote, foreign body – the Avon Maitland District School Board - does not care. Blyth is not their responsibility. While their actions have a direct effect on the community’s economy, society, culture, and the children’s development within their home town – there is no means to hold that foreign board accountable for the collateral damage they inflict, the negative side effects they cause.
The standardized tests reveal that Avon Maitland Students on average perform below the provincial average on all measured subjects. The changes being discussed provided an opportunity to make changes that would support strategies to improve education quality. Instead the board staff have recommended actions that will do nothing towards that end. These changes do not take children, parents, communities, or education into account - only the equation of bodies and desks to hold them.
Perhaps the board and staff members’ mentalities are victims of that whole centralization process – a process which has some good points as well as a good many negatives. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a mentality emerging which is capable of finding ways to ameliorate those negatives.
So, what are these damaging effects?
The education system has been completely divorced from the community context in terms of education content, community engagement, and acceptance of accountability to the community.
The fact that the larger unit of administration has almost completely eliminated the community’s meaningful representation on the Board has not been lost on the board staff and the board. They are showing that they feel no obligation to consider the community and make no attempt to even pretend to be accountable to the community.
According to the plans that we have heard about, the Blyth school children will be split off in several directions: Grade 7 and 8 children will be bussed to Wingham to take classes in that town’s high school, while some of the K to 6 children will go south to the Hullett school and others will go north to a school near Belgrave.
The curriculum will not relate to the Blyth community context since few if any of the teachers will have any interest in or loyalty to or knowledge of that village.
The Blyth community, devoid of any school, will be less attractive to young couples seeking a place to raise their families.
There will be an economic impact since fewer people will come for shopping to the village when the school link is broken.
The exposure of Grade 7 an 8 students to the influences of secondary school students is still of grave concern to parents and the educators have done nothing to assuage those concerns.
The next addition to All About Blyth will look at the municipal amalgamation process of 2000
Small communities right across Canada are under siege. They are assailed from all directions and from many sources. They are at risk economically, culturally, medically, socially, politically, educationally, and some of the troubles come from within the communities themselves.
While we occasionally hear our politicians declare their concern about “protecting small town Canada” (usually when talking to a small town audience), they continue to enact policies that damage small towns, and ignore opportunities to protect them.
While Jan and I were driving the other day, we got to talking about the negative things that are happening now and those that took place in the past. Sometimes you need to list these things in order to realize the extent of the problem. As we talked, we saw the items as the result of trends. The over-riding trend has been that of control being moved progressively farther away from our community.
Take education for example.
When this community was first formed in the mid 1800s, there was very little money available, but the people found enough money to build a school and to hire teachers for it. The question never arose as to “whether we could afford it or not”.
In 1896 the village opened a modern two-storey school to house the Blyth Public School (Grades 1 to 8) and the Blyth Continuation School (Grades 9 to 12).
In 1946 district high school boards were formed, with one representative from Blyth on that board, and the Blyth Continuation School was closed. Students from 9 to 13 were bussed to Clinton to attend the newly named Clinton District Collegiate Institute. Blyth had an elected representative on that board.
Some time later the Huron County Board of Education was formed, and more recently Huron County and Perth County boards were combined to form the Avon Maitland District School Board. If there is a board member who represents Blyth, no one seems to know who that is. In any case, if there is such a person, he or she will be representing so many communities that none of them will be truly represented.
Now because of declining enrolment across the county, it has apparently become too expensive to educate Blyth children within Blyth, according to the AMDSB, so the school is likely to be closed permanently. This is a terrible blow to Blyth as a community. Many of the ramifications of this latest move is against the wishes of nearly all the parents and the members of the community. There is a deep anger throughout the community about this unfortunate turn of history. But that remote, foreign body – the Avon Maitland District School Board - does not care. Blyth is not their responsibility. While their actions have a direct effect on the community’s economy, society, culture, and the children’s development within their home town – there is no means to hold that foreign board accountable for the collateral damage they inflict, the negative side effects they cause.
The standardized tests reveal that Avon Maitland Students on average perform below the provincial average on all measured subjects. The changes being discussed provided an opportunity to make changes that would support strategies to improve education quality. Instead the board staff have recommended actions that will do nothing towards that end. These changes do not take children, parents, communities, or education into account - only the equation of bodies and desks to hold them.
Perhaps the board and staff members’ mentalities are victims of that whole centralization process – a process which has some good points as well as a good many negatives. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a mentality emerging which is capable of finding ways to ameliorate those negatives.
So, what are these damaging effects?
The education system has been completely divorced from the community context in terms of education content, community engagement, and acceptance of accountability to the community.
The fact that the larger unit of administration has almost completely eliminated the community’s meaningful representation on the Board has not been lost on the board staff and the board. They are showing that they feel no obligation to consider the community and make no attempt to even pretend to be accountable to the community.
According to the plans that we have heard about, the Blyth school children will be split off in several directions: Grade 7 and 8 children will be bussed to Wingham to take classes in that town’s high school, while some of the K to 6 children will go south to the Hullett school and others will go north to a school near Belgrave.
The curriculum will not relate to the Blyth community context since few if any of the teachers will have any interest in or loyalty to or knowledge of that village.
The Blyth community, devoid of any school, will be less attractive to young couples seeking a place to raise their families.
There will be an economic impact since fewer people will come for shopping to the village when the school link is broken.
The exposure of Grade 7 an 8 students to the influences of secondary school students is still of grave concern to parents and the educators have done nothing to assuage those concerns.
The next addition to All About Blyth will look at the municipal amalgamation process of 2000
Sunday, June 14, 2009
What is a Blog?
Many people have asked me what is a blog: "What do you do with it?"; "How do I access it?" "How do they work?"
Since you are looking at this blog, you've already managed the most important part. I am just learning about this tool myself, hoping that it will be of interest to some people, and that it will help our collection of Blyth history fulfill our high expectations.
Do a web search for "What is a blog" and you will get many web pages that will help you understand what blogs are all about.
blog - It's a short form for Web Log. It is situated on the Web, and it's my log book or a kind of public diary. As for the content, it will include mainly my thoughts, ideas, stories, and hopefully, you and others will make some comments about what I write. Disagree with me, agree with me, chat with me, ask me questions, answer my questions, correct my mistakes. With your help, this blog could become really interesting. So help me brighten up this one-way chatter and make it a conversation.
You may choose to join this group and become a follower if you want to keep in touch regularly. I honestly do not know the benefits of joining and following. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten all of us by entering a comment below about what it all means.
Comments will be visible to me and anyone else looking at the blog.
I have a special request of you. If you know people with a Blyth connection who you think might be interested in this "stuff", tell them about the address of this blog: http://allaboutblyth.blogspot.com and suggest that they look in an leave a message or comment.
We have developed this Repository of Blyth History. It is helping dozens of people find out about their ancestors who once lived in Blyth. That's one of the main purposes.
Over 200 families have either requested information or have provided us with their information - and many have done both. It is turning out to be a tremendous resource. Many of our contact people are planning to come to Blyth this summer to look at our collection - some for the first time, some for the second or third time. They are coming from Northern Ontario, from Michigan, from Ottawa, from Kitchener-Waterloo, as well as closer to Blyth.
The Huron Historical Society's publication called Huron Historical Notes 2007 is entirely devoted to Blyth and our collection. There are still a few copies available at the Citizen office (weekly paper in Blyth) as well as the Huron County Museum in Goderich, Ontario. They cost only $8.00. If you need one mailed to you write to me at the address below and add $3.00 for mailing.
Brock Vodden
Box 492
Blyth, Ontario N0M 1H0
Since you are looking at this blog, you've already managed the most important part. I am just learning about this tool myself, hoping that it will be of interest to some people, and that it will help our collection of Blyth history fulfill our high expectations.
Do a web search for "What is a blog" and you will get many web pages that will help you understand what blogs are all about.
blog - It's a short form for Web Log. It is situated on the Web, and it's my log book or a kind of public diary. As for the content, it will include mainly my thoughts, ideas, stories, and hopefully, you and others will make some comments about what I write. Disagree with me, agree with me, chat with me, ask me questions, answer my questions, correct my mistakes. With your help, this blog could become really interesting. So help me brighten up this one-way chatter and make it a conversation.
You may choose to join this group and become a follower if you want to keep in touch regularly. I honestly do not know the benefits of joining and following. Perhaps someone out there can enlighten all of us by entering a comment below about what it all means.
Comments will be visible to me and anyone else looking at the blog.
I have a special request of you. If you know people with a Blyth connection who you think might be interested in this "stuff", tell them about the address of this blog: http://allaboutblyth.blogspot.com and suggest that they look in an leave a message or comment.
We have developed this Repository of Blyth History. It is helping dozens of people find out about their ancestors who once lived in Blyth. That's one of the main purposes.
Over 200 families have either requested information or have provided us with their information - and many have done both. It is turning out to be a tremendous resource. Many of our contact people are planning to come to Blyth this summer to look at our collection - some for the first time, some for the second or third time. They are coming from Northern Ontario, from Michigan, from Ottawa, from Kitchener-Waterloo, as well as closer to Blyth.
The Huron Historical Society's publication called Huron Historical Notes 2007 is entirely devoted to Blyth and our collection. There are still a few copies available at the Citizen office (weekly paper in Blyth) as well as the Huron County Museum in Goderich, Ontario. They cost only $8.00. If you need one mailed to you write to me at the address below and add $3.00 for mailing.
Brock Vodden
Box 492
Blyth, Ontario N0M 1H0
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