Accelerated Push for a Community-Operated Public School

With the School Board's decision in favour of school closures, support for a community-operated public school in Margaree grew and the Margaree Education Coalition's effort to make this a reality went into high gear. In the months following the 11December vote, the Coalition applied for registered charitable society status, elected a board of directors, appointed a temporary coordinator, and began actively recruiting a full time coordinator. Fifty volunteers joined committees to work on fundraising, advocacy, community awareness building, student empowerment, and proposal development. ¹²

During the first 6 months of 1997 a "Draft Proposal Outline" of the Strategy for Education in Margaree was developed and widely circulated among education stakeholders in Nova Scotia.¹³ Kitchen Forum III was held in June, 1997 with the purpose of gaining public input into the proposal.¹⁴ At this time, a full-time coordinator was hired on a 6-month contract to complete the proposal for the "Community-Operated Public School” and to present it to the Minister of Education and the Strait Regional School Board (SRSB).

Regional School Board's Counter Proposal

Meanwhile, the SRSB launched its "Finding Solutions" campaign to address widespread opposition to its restructuring plans. The "solution" in North Inverness County was to be a new Primary to Grade 12 school in Belle Cote, on the north end of the Margaree Community. The Margaree Education Coalition was asked by the school board to sponsor a community vote on this concept. A mini-referendum was held in September, 1997, and 818 ballots were cast. Two questions were asked. The first question asked voters to choose between the options of building a new P-12 school in Belle Cote or upgrading the current Margaree schools. 60% of the votes favoured the upgrading of the current schools; 40% preferred a new school (many in this group felt that the other option was not a real possibility, given the school board's position). The second question asked the people of Margaree if they supported the establishment of a Community-Operated Public School. 50.3% answered "NO" and 49.7% said "YES."

Although the majority of voters wanted the existing schools refurbished, the SRSB vetoed this option. The Margaree Education Coalition met with the superintendent of the SRSB, who encouraged the Coalition to propose sites for the new school. MEC struck a committee of its Board, which proposed 5 sites. None of these were accepted. Instead, a site on the boundary of Belle Cote and Terre Noire was selected and approved and the North Inverness Education Centre and Academy was to be built by a private consortium and leased to the SRSB. Construction of this school is underway as this book goes to press.