board insists public meeting Mon 27th despite shut out!

A final community consultation on the closure of a Regent Park school will go ahead as planned.  The meeting, called for Monday, June 27th (7pm at Winchester PS), has been in dispute since it was announced to an email list late last week.

Appeals for it’s postponement due to inadequate community notification were sent to the school board officials early Wednesday morning but  by late Friday  the TDSB insisted that adequate notice had been given, and the Monday meeting would proceed.

Reports reaching our correspondents, indicate that despite the postal lockout, meeting notices had be distributed to parents within 500 metres of the Regent Park school slated for demolition and sale.

In a report on CKLN.fm earlier this week the news of inadequate notification of area stakeholders wass characterized as “a disturbing breach of public trust”.  The media report comes on the heals of  earlier charges that the TDSB failed to inform members of the public of the possible closure and sale of a school in Regent Park.

Letters from the public, some from directly across the street from the ill-fated school, others from communities just to the south but within the school’s catchment area, flooded the board prior to its June 22nd meeting. It seems that public consultation meetings required under the Education Act have not been adequately advertised across the ward.

The TDSB is currently reviewing nine elementary schools as part of a “pupil accommodation review” taking place within an area bounded by Bloor St, the Toronto harbour, the Don River and Sherbourne Street.  The various neighbourhoods which would be impacted by a reduction in the number of schools include the most densely populated urban areas in Canada.

Said one community member from Regent Park, who asked that her name be withheld,  “I am the only person involved from my community…immigrants like me in Regent Park just won’t come to meetings outside their immediate neighbourhood”.

source: ckln.fm 6:50am, June 23, 2011 and correspondents