It’s a day later. Cooler heads have prevailed, and now the outrage over having Riverdale High School taken from the English community and handed over to a French school board is beginning to moderate. It's also beginning to turn inward.
This was pointed out to me in texts from listeners yesterday, after the reaction from so many callers who were up in arms over the 'heavy handed' decision by our education minster to unilaterally (and against the advice of both boards involved) give Riverdale to the French board.
The rationale was simple. Riverdale is an underutilized school, populated at only about 60% capacity, while French schools are at an over capacity "crisis" according to the education minster - to the point where some students are forced to study in school basements, hallways or cafeterias. He said it was simply a matter of numbers.
So whose fault is this really? The provincial government’s for taking action to fill a half empty school while others are overcrowded, or, is there a finger to point at English parents, who COULD be sending their children to English schools, but choose instead to send them to French schools, thereby becoming directly responsible for the steady and precipitous decline of enrollment in English schools? We Anglophone parents who want nothing more than the best for our children, have unwittingly become the victims of our own our best intentions.
So, where does the fault lie here? And what if the shoe were on the other foot, where Anglo students were forced to stay home because there was no room for them in an overcrowded school? Wouldn’t we expect, and demand, that the government act? In the case of Riverdale, and possibly other schools to come, our anger and frustration over losing them needs to be directed, at least in part, at ourselves.