Ann Miller, trustee with the Eastern School District, speaks during a meeting of the board Wednesday night in Stratford. The board voted in favour of building new schools in Stratford and Souris and for an expansion to Westwood Primary School in Cornwall. Guardian photo by Brian McInnis

The Eastern School District’s board of trustees voted Wednesday night to build new schools for Stratford and Souris and an extension onto Westwood Primary, but the vote was not unanimous.
About 50 people, mainly from the Stratford area, crammed into the board’s meeting room, anxiously awaiting the results of the vote.
Parents in Stratford have been frustrated at the critical situation at Glen Stewart Elementary, which has been overcrowded for years. Currently there are twice as many students attending than the school can hold. Add to that an expected increase of over 70 students by 2012, according to the provincial enrolment study, as well as an additional 150 kindergarten students to arrive in 2010 and the concern in the community is clear.
That’s why the majority of the 11 school trustees voted in favour of superintendent Sandy MacDonald’s recommendation to ask government to build a new school for Grades 4-6 next to or adjoining Glen Stewart.
But three trustees — Edna Reid, Elizabeth Rankin and Gael MacEachern — voted against it.
They stressed to The Guardian after the meeting their votes were not meant to show opposition to the new construction. They were voicing their feeling the process is getting ahead of itself.
“I still don’t think we have a vision for the school district,” MacEachern said.
“We have not formally adopted the school organization plan and for us to begin by pulling out select recommendations, I’m just very cautious that this is not the right plan.”
The three trustees were also the odd ones out in voting against an addition to Westwood Primary in Cornwall.
That school’s enrolments are also expected to increase. The town houses the highest number of children under 14 in the province and after Stratford is the second-fastest growing town.
The majority vote Wednesday evening, nonetheless, was to agree to recommend government renovate Westwood to accommodate this influx.
But in the last vote of the night, Rankin did not vote against a new school for Souris, as she had for the previous two votes.
She says she felt obligated to agree with this recommendation because the only options presented were a K-12 school or to keep the three old schools open. But she said she felt more study needed to be done.
“I feel like we were very much pushed into a corner in this situation,” Rankin said.
“Students who enter this (new) building could feel very frustrated to come to the same building every day for 14 years.”
She suggested parents in the area ask government to allow their children to at least remain in their existing schools until the new facility is built, to reduce the disturbance of multiple transfers.
Most of the members of the public at the meeting, however, were ecstatic. Many of them were instrumental in the lobby efforts by groups pushing to get new schools.
Lindy McQuillan, whose oldest son is scheduled to begin kindergarten in Stratford when it moves into Glen Stewart in 2010, was very pleased with the outcome.
“I think they made the decision for the children,” she said.
She and others at the meeting acknowledged the difficulty of those eight communities facing school closures who must watch Stratford and Souris celebrate news of new schools.
But it’s the best decision for the children, McQuillan said.
“It is very much bittersweet and I think that word was used by many people here, but the important thing is at the end of the day I think the district made this decision for the children of the Eastern School District.”