TRURO – The future of Wentworth’s elementary and four other rural schools could be decided tonight when the Chignecto-Central Regional School Board holds a special meeting.
The board will receive the school study committee responses to the board’s impact assessment reports for schools in Wentworth, Bass River, East Pictou, Maitland and River John.
“It’s a formal process as directed by the Education Act,” board spokeswoman Debbie Buott-Matheson said Friday. “At Monday’s special meeting the board will formally receive the school committee responses to the impact assessment reports.”
The board will then vote on each school and whether to move forward to the next stage or remove schools from the review process.
If the board votes to move to the next step, Buott-Matheson said public meetings will be held at each of the schools later this month. Information collected at these meeting will be used to help the board make a final decision on each school at the end of March.
The board has until March 31 to make recommendations to the Education Department. The province can either veto or ratifiy the decisions with the earliest schools could be closed being in September when classes resume for the 2013-14 school year.
Buott-Matheson said members of the board’s operational services and education committees met on Thursday and received information on the reports so they could study them over the weekend before making a decision.
Cecil MacLeod, who chaired the Wentworth study review committee, could not be reached for comment on Friday, but he told a public meeting in Wentworth last month that closing the elementary school there would knock the feet out from under the community.
He said closing the school is unacceptable and should not be considered.
dcole@amherstdaily.com
