November 16, 2006

Madam, Sir:

I am writing this letter in regards to the proposed school closings in Franklin and Howick. Leahy Orchards Inc. have decided to remain in a rural area as a business, because we are family operated and are committed to our community. The 200 + people who are on our team are practically all from Franklin and surrounding municipalities, over half of them attended school in our municipality.

We often have people opting not to work for our company who live in Valleyfield, saying the 25-minute commute is too long. Losing our school would certainly amplify this problem. Not many young families will be interested in moving to or residing in a community where their children will be on the bus for 1 1/2 to 2 hours a day, time the children could spend playing instead of sitting in a bus.

Our school board is talking to us in numbers and dollars, and in terms of investments, long and short term; they certainly can make the numbers and their visions work for whatever they want to impose. The problem is that we the taxpayers are the customers and the school board will not be delivering the quality and service that we expect for our money. In business, this can get you in big trouble with the hand that feeds you and will normally put you out of business.

At Leahy Orchards we invest enormously in our community as a business and as citizens, in partnership with the many, many local farm enterprises who put their all into their operations and community, and we all support infrastructure improvements, some we could never justify in dollars and cents. We are willing to go to some lengths to defend the schools that are the cornerstones of our community.

In a study, Alen Peshkin showed how vital a school is to the survival of rural communities. According to Peshkin,  “Viable villages generally contain schools; dying and dead ones either lack them or do not have them for long. The capacity to maintain a school is a continuing indicator of a community’s well-being.”  Economies of scale and more ‘bang for the buck’ are two rationales that are still offered by proponents of consolidation today. While consolidation advocates can sometimes make an economic argument for merging districts and closing schools, they have not been able to marshal evidence to show that educational quality improves as scale increases. Indeed, since 1970, the overwhelming consensus among educational researchers is that the advantages of consolidation on academic performance and achievement are greatly outweighed by the disadvantages (Kauffman, 2001; Kennedy, 2001).

According to Huang and Howley (1993) “.... results have generally pointed to a negative relationship between size and academic achievement. All else held equal, small schools have evident advantages for achievement. …“The impact of school consolidation on students is immediate, or nearly so; however, the impacts of consolidation on the respective communities social and economically – may take place over several years.”  …“To close a country school was to destroy an institution that held the little rural community together. It was to wipe out the one building the people of the district had in common and, in fact, to destroy the community...” Rest assured, our community is alive and well, these statements alone tell me that everyone in our community agrees that our schools are not to be sacrificed.

The problem is that the cost savings the government is forcing our school boards to implement, regardless of the short-term or long-term effects on our community, and without concrete evidence there will be money saved.

Poor education = Poor economy.

We pay for our schools with our taxes, education should never be compromised as it is in our province. Take the money from elsewhere, the problem is not going to be solved by inflating future capital costs to be spent at Franklin or Howick schools. The results of closing these schools would be only the same money spent in another building,  a longer bus ride for our children and an inferior education than  is now given, all supposedly for more‘bang for the buck’ !!

I am getting involved seemingly late on this issue, I just never imagine this would have led us to where we are right now. I hope that our school board will think deeply and make a decision that will not be regretted by our communities.

Best regards,

Michael Leahy

President General Manager