The following proposal has not been implemented. Nevertheless, through its decade-long development process, valuable awareness has been built within the Margaree community. Although the crisis in education appears to have been averted, and the need for an alternative Grades 9-12 school in Margaree may have been eliminated, the opportunities for New Learning incorporated in the Community-Operated Public School proposal can be used to improve education in the new school. In addition, community awareness and resources may be channelled to address the greater challenges of life-long learning and teaching and the development of the Margaree community.

The concept of the Community-Operated Public School remains a useful model. Other locations in the Maritimes, particularly rural communities seeking an alternative way of protecting and enhancing education may be able to draw from this proposal and apply some of its ideas to their own situations.

The Margaree Education Coalition and the authors of the New Learning Guide wish to caution the reader about limitations of the following proposal for the Community-Operated Public School. Three major issues must be resolved before such a school can be established:

1. There is as yet no provincial legislation in the Maritimes to permit the realization of such a proposal. As we have said, we believe that this legislation will be enacted as pressure for it mounts.
2. The source of capital to acquire and renovate the building to house the Community Operated Public School is not clearly identified, and is not included in the budget scenarios. (In some cases school buildings no longer used by the school board may be available.)
3. The relationship between the Nova Scotia Teachers Union and the Community-Operated Public School receives superficial attention in the proposal, without a framework for negotiation.

All three of these issues are complex and extensive. They have been and continue to be major obstacles in efforts to establish publicly-funded locally-governed schools, and their resolution is beyond the scope of the New Learning Guide.

The financial viability of the plan depends on two assumptions. Firstly, design of the Grades 9-12 curricula for the school was accomplished in a novel way. The essential graduation learnings defined by the Department of Education were satisfied, and in addition the needs and desires of the Margaree community as expressed through the Kitchen Forum process were incorporated into the program plans. The designers assumed the freedom to dedicate volunteer teaching resources from the Margaree community to support the enhanced curriculum.

Secondly, the design assumes the freedom to raise funds and to receive in-kind contributions for local program development and for operating the school.

Note: Although there is no longer any timetable for implementing our proposal in Margaree, we have let stand the language in which it was originally couched and the statistics originally compiled, implying a pilot s project to begin in the year 2000.