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Proposed new approach to Sackville schools still alive, despite rejection by DEC

A Sackville group that hoped to create a "community learning campus" for all grade levels in the community says the project isn't dead, despite being rejected by the Anglophone East District Education Council this week.

The Sackville Schools 2020 committee wanted to see the town's three aging schools — Salem Elementary School, Marshview Middle School and Tantramar High School — replaced by one campus for kindergarten to Grade 12 students.

The proposal called for a"connected campus" that would allow all 1,000 students in Sackville to share facilities and resources such as a library, with one another and the larger community.

The education council voted down the idea Monday after hearing from local school principals and from students at Tantramar High School.

But Andrew Wilson, the chair of the committee, said the idea is far from dead.

"I see this as a really important step along the way," said Wilson.

"It's time for the community to begin to think about those broader sorts of boundary-crossing possibilities."

Harry Doyle, chair of the education council, said Sackville Schools 2020 made a good presentation, but the views of students from Tantramar High School weighed heavily in the decision to reject it.

"They mentioned [many] times tonight to convince us that they wanted to be a high school standing by themselves," said Doyle.

Sense of community

Sackville Schools 2020
Sackville Schools 2020

Wilson said he wasn't surprised about the vote but believes the concerns raised by students could be addressed within the proposal.

He said the goal was never to create one huge facility.

"People have this idea that there's this mega-school thing in the works and of course that's nothing we've ever proposed," said Wilson.

"I mean that doesn't, that just wouldn't work."

Wilson said the concerns he heard from students was a loss of community involvement if Tantramar High closed, but he said the goal of the campus plan would be to foster community.

"This whole campus idea is really just a way of structuring education as a microcosm of the community," said Wilson.

"The school becomes a town, within a town and it's nestled within the community so that those sorts of relationships with the community can really happen and play out in very productive and … in much easier ways than they already do."

Wilson said 10 presentations to the DEC showed the community wants its schools, whatever they look like, to focus on community.

"I think the thing that really stood out from all of those presentations is that everybody in the community is on the same page when it comes to the importance and the significance of community-supported learning," said Wilson.