Board responds to Parkview concerns

(Updated) It’s been a long — and sometimes noisy fight — for parents and students at Hamilton’s Parkview school. They’re faced not only with the school’s closure — but with the loss of specialized programs as well.

But there have been some significant developments on that story in the last 24 hours, with a public meeting being held tonight at Parkview.

Last night a group of students, parents and supporters loudly voiced their opposition to the closure of the Parkview program, and the plan to phase out specialized, secondary school education in favour of integration.

Earlier today it appeared that the board got the message loud and clear. It issued a news release promising to move the current Parkview programs and the school’s highly regarded principal Paul Beattie to Mountain Secondary for the 2014 school year. In addition they will move as many staff members as possible, under the current rules of the collective agreement.

They agreed to provide transportation by either school bus, or HSR and finally, to move equipment from Parkview to Mountain, and continue vocational training if necessary.
That last point is the sticky one because it’s rather vague.

Mountain itself is scheduled to close in 2017… so will that mean an end to all special needs classes?

Many parents are happy about the changes — but some of them like Lisa Calleja feel that while they’ve won the current battle — ultimately they’ve lost the fight for special needs education.

“What of the future kids? I mean, vocational needs are vocational needs, they’re not going to end in three years when our children have all graduated.”

“Our kids have lived an inclusion model for the first ten years of their life in elementary school. An inclusion model meant bullying, physical/verbal/mental/emotional. My son used to come home with choke marks on his neck because he was by virtue different.”

“It is our job as parents to give our kids the future that they deserve. And after ten years of being in a very negative academic/verbal/emotional environment, to move in to a program like Parkview and Mountain offers, is going to give them the next best steps that they need. All we want are happy contributing members of society.”

Tonight’s meeting is to inform the public of the changes. Tomorrow there is another meeting for parents and students only that will discuss the changes more specifically.