Former school review chief agrees changes needed to hub school model
Former deputy minister Bob Fowler suggests communities run schools, lease space to school boards
The man who helped shape the current rules for hub schools in Nova Scotia has some proposals that would dramatically change how they would be funded.
Bob Fowler crisscrossed the province talking to Nova Scotians about community school models throughout the winter in 2014. His report later that summer formed the basis for the current criteria being used by school boards to evaluate hub schools.
Now Fowler has some different ideas. One suggestion is that boards transfer ownership of some schools to communities and become tenants in those spaces, he said Friday..
And he's glad Education Minister Karen Casey wants to take another look at the current hub school model.
School boards as tenants
"We could see a school converted either to, I guess, the municipality [or] some sort of community partnership or corporation, where the school board would in fact become a tenant in that space," Fowler said.
Municipalities, the province or even the federal government could become partners in hub schools, he said.
Communities, particularly smaller ones, do need financial help to keep schools open, Fowler said.
"Giving them a three-year seed grant that allows them to nurture other community partners that may be able to pay rent and contribute to the school or the facility over a long period of time."
Casey open to changes
Fowler said Friday it's time for a review and praised Casey for being open to changes.
"I think that is encouraging to communities who may still be contemplating a run at a hub school model," he said. "I commend the department and the minister for taking another look."
Not one proposal for a hub school has been accepted to date. The latest refusal was this week by the Tri-County Regional School Board which rejected Digby Neck Consolidated School as a hub school.
Fowler says that points to the need for a review of the criteria.
He feels the concept is still worthwhile despite the repeated rejections.
"The hub school is really about the livelihood of a community, of a town or a geographic area," he said. "Schools are sort of the last bastion of what's there in a community."
Financial commitments unrealistic
Julie Woodman, principal of Digby Neck Consolidated School, is also happy to hear changes may be coming.
She sat on the committee that spent month and "hundreds of hours" putting together the proposal rejected by the Tri-County School Board earlier this week.
"I can't say that I'm surprised about what the minister had to say, considering it is an election year," Woodman said.
But the proposal for Digby Neck Consolidated fell well short of the amount of money the board claimed was needed to cover the cost of running the school.
According to Woodman, the board originally set that amount at $363,509.02. In June, it reduced that estimate to $176,000.
'A fair shot'
"It was much less — about half — but still an unrealistic amount for a small community in Sandy Cove," she said.
The group's plan could only budget $70,000 a year to cover costs.
Woodman would like to see the rules changed so that community groups would cover some but not all the costs.
"We would just like to be given more of a fair shot to help cover those costs," she said.