A rural school is more than a building: Within that shell is the community’s spirit. That’s why people are so upset over school closures, says a Saskatchewan director of education.
Ivan Yackel, who studied the 1991-1996 experience with rural school closures in Saskatchewan, told the Third National Congress on Rural Education the research is contradictory.
One truth, he found, is that the notice of impending death for a small school causes “intense political conflict.” The older a school is, the more loyalty it draws from people. The bitterness over a closed school can linger for decades.
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There is no good way to close a school, only a number of poor options, Yackel concluded. The difficulty of the process depends on the planning done by school officials and trustees, the timing of the closure, the involvement of parents and the community in the decision and how teachers are distributed after the closure.
Know when to say good-bye
Yackel said it is not always kind to leave the school standing.
“Too often rural school boards have bowed to pressure and saddled the community with another building it can ill afford to keep up, rather than go in with a bulldozer and leave a clean lot that can be used for a park or development.”
However, another session at the congress disputed what Yackel saw as the inevitability of rural school closures.
A group of five education graduate students and professors from the University of Saskatchewan suggested study circles as a better way to decide whether and how to close schools.
These circles allow everyone in the community to have a say and are not only more respectful but also could result in new ideas, said Michael Collins.
Helen Armstrong, who straddles several roles as farmer, trustee, teacher and parent, said some options are to use senior citizens as volunteers in the classroom and to close an old or expensive building but move the students to the local hall rather than bus them away.
An audience member said education should be redefined. People spend a lot of money sending their children to Europe to learn culture when 20 miles away they could learn about aboriginals on a reserve or francophone culture from a French town.
Where and how
Another person used the example of First Nations children sent to residential schools to point out the difference between quality schooling (attached to a building) and quality education (creativity).
Armstrong urged rural communities to have foresight so that “we don’t think about doing something when you’re being sucked into the black hole and hanging on by your fingernails.”
Trust is the most important factor for discussion circles, said the group of educators. But that is a fragile commodity. Anger was obvious from one audience member who said about city people moving out to acreages: “We school your kids but you won’t come out to our dances or buy into our system.”
Armstrong said another factor making rural school closures difficult is the backlash to top-down decision making.
“People are troubled. They are aware the grassroots is no longer valued.”
