Zorra Mayor Suggests Getting Rid of School Boards

Thursday, 31 March 2022 14:28

Ryan would like to see Oxford/Elgin/Middlesex have their own school board, he also asks if we even need school boards at all.

DORCHESER - It was a another big crowd for a public meeting in Dorchester regarding rural education.

The meeting was be hosted by Zorra Township Mayor Marcus Ryan, Zorra Ward 2 Councillor Katie Grigg and Thames Centre Deputy Mayor Kelly Elliott. They wanted to provide an update to families on recent happenings with the Thames Valley District School Board.

Last week, the school board voted to disband the Rural Education Task Force, before they could present a final report to the school board. You can read the draft report online here.

Marcus Ryan who was also the vice chair on the rural education task force says they also wanted to hear from residents about their concerns.

"There are concerns are not new to anyone who has followed this issue or lived in rural Ontario for years and that is if you have a small Elementary School, you are constantly under the threat of closure and if you have a small Secondary School, you are struggling to get the course offered to your children that are offered in large urban centres."

Ryan also addressed a social media post from the TVDSB recently.

Rural schools in need of renovation have been given new life thanks to the combined capital of our London and County schools. @trudeaufi underwent a major renovation in 2009 to add six new classrooms, a gym, a stage, an activity room and administrative offices. #ruraled pic.twitter.com/ZsWwHWjlE7
— Mark Fisher (@DirFisherTVDSB) March 24, 2022

Ryan says that post was ridiculous.

"First of all, some of the tweets showed schools that are not rural, they showed schools from St. Thomas and characterized them as rural. St. Thomas is a City of 40,000, I'm sure they don't consider themselves rural and neither would people who live on gravel roads. They talked about how pooling the taxes of London with Oxford/Elgin and Middlesex allowed them to do capital projects and things for rural schools but that is not how education is funded in Ontario. People pay an education portion on their property taxes but all that money doesn't go to the school boards, it goes to the Province and the Province sends it back to the school boards for capital projects on a case by case basis."

Ryan suggests a few solutions they could look at, which include elect better trustees in Oxford County.

"Both Oxford Trustees voted to kill the Rural Education Task Force before it was complete. The next step would be, a lot of residents last night were interested in the idea of a combined Elgin/Oxford/Middlesex school board, separate from London."

Ryan also pondered if we even need school boards at all.

"The Province collects taxes, they determine the funding for the school boards, negotiate the contracts with teachers, so what really are we getting from school boards, in theory its local representation but the experience of people in this board, certainly in rural areas is we don't get that. So what if we wiped out school boards and gave the school properties to municipalities."