PARENTS OR BOARD?

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 106, 21 May 1937, Page 5

PARENTS OR BOARD?

Who Should Decide On School Consoiidation? The opinion that the Department of Education should allow education boards to make decisions on the consolodation of schools instead of referring the matter to a vote by the parents, who were not in a position to know what was best for the children, was expressed in a resolution passed at a meeting of the Hawke's Bay Education Board this morning. The resolution asked the department to give the board power to act in all cases of consoiidation. The discussion arose from a report to the board that a referendum of the parents of children attending the Woodlands Road School, about two mile from Woodville, on consoiidation with tht Woodville School had rejected the proposal by 15 votes to five. Members pomted out that the committee of the Woodlands Road School was very proud of the school and of the improveraents that had been effected to the grounds but was of the opixxion that consolodation with Woodville was not in the interests of the children. "I think that the board should decide what should be done in the matter of concolidation commented Mr C. Lasseh. "I move that the department be asked that the board should have the decision and not tlie parents." The chairman, Mr G. A. Maddison: In the whole of New Zealand there have beCn 100 cases of consoiidation effecting 300 schools, and in every case they have been most successful. The parents will not put in the forefront the good of their children. Why should we not have the decision on that point? The motion that the facts of the vote regarding the Woodlands Road School should be placed before the department, and that it should be asked to go into the whole matter of consoiidation with a view to allowing tlie board to make the decision, was corried unanimously.