SITE OF A SCHOOL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1079, 17 September 1930, Page 12

SITE OF A SCHOOL

DISPUTE AT HAMILTON WEST COMMITTEE’S STRONG PROTEST From Our Oxen Correspondent HAMILTON. Tuesday. The dispute over the Hamilton West School site, which has been raging on anrl off for nearly two years, continues with unabated vigour. The school, an old building requiring replacement, stands on a hill in the centre of the town and the site is favoured by the bulk of parents tor its handy position. Both local members of the Auckland Education Board, Messrs, f- A. Snell and S. B. Sims, prefer the site at Fow Street. Palmerston Estate, for the new school, and point out that it is important that the present grounds of the school should be used by the Technical or High Schools nearby. The school committee strongly opposes any change of site, and is particularly dissatisfied with the Fow Street site. The Health -Department reported against it. and the committee learned with surprise that the Education Department had purchased the property. Members of my committee are greatly surprised at your department allowing itself to be influenced by the two members of the Auckland Board, especially in view of the fact that they are members of the Technical School Board, and one of them is late chairman of the West Committee who lost his seat over the matter,” writes the secretary of the committee in a letter to the Minister of Education. “The wishes of the public, the parents and the folk who pay the bill have been completely ignored, and they have become victims of sleight-of-hand sprung on to them without the slightest intimation.” In a statement to the Press, Mr. Snell points out that some years ago the school committee was unanimous that the school should be moved to a more suitable site. The committee, he considers, has been foolish in rejecting an offer to have a new school built and deprecates the attitude of the parents in denying the right of the large secondary schools to an extension of grounds. The published letter to the Minister, he says, with “base insinuations” regarding the actions of Mr. Sims and himself, he treats with contempt.