We need a High School Now!!!

While we are in the mist of a Provincial election we need to bring to the forefront the issue of a high school in Wasaga Beach. We bus each day during the school year over 800 students to the high schools in Elmvale, Stayner, and Collingwood.

The current school trustee for Wasaga Beach has no interest in helping the town get a high school. If you think municipal politics is a blood sport, you have never attended a school trustee meeting. I've attended several of these meetings, and I can tell you that the vast majority of the trustees only care for the students in their home towns. The Wasaga Beach school trustee lives in Midland I believe, and she supports the schools in her area.

The process in deciding where a new school gets built is quite simple. Each year school boards prepare both operational and capital budgets which get sent to the Ministry for approval. The school trustee's with the assistance of board staff prepare case studies, and business plans for capital budget requests, they then vote on these, and then submit the approved plans to the Ministry for funding.

Not once has the trustee's submitted to the Ministry a business plan as to why a new high school should be built in Wasaga Beach. They have submitted plans for the renovation of the high school in Elmvale, but nothing for Wasaga Beach. I will give credit to our current Mayor, Cal Patterson as he stood in a board meeting back in 2010 with a business plan prepared by the town, at the town's expense, and it was not even voted on by the school trustee's. The town even went a step further and were willing to donate the land for the new high school to be built on, and still the board rejected the plan outright.

Back in 2007, over 5000 residents signed a petition which was presented to MPP, Jim Wilson who promised that he would bring up the matter in the house, but he never did. Wilson has been a strong supporter of renovating the high school in Elmvale, but he won't stand with the residents of Wasaga Beach, which is his town as well.

I really hope for the sake of our students that we get a strong candidate as school trustee, who will fight for a high school in Wasaga Beach. When you vote for a school trustee make sure that he or she stands with the residents and promises to do their best to finally get us a high school.