The Wairoa Bell AND Hobson County Gazette. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14th.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 27, 14 December 1894, Page 6

The Wairoa Bell AND Hobson County Gazette. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14th.

The decision of the Aratapu School Committee, to strongly oppose the proposal of the Chairman o f the Board of Education to remove the Aratapu school to a site near the Aratapu Pound, and about one mile from its present position, will be supported by almost every householder. The Education Board have been called upon to provide a school at Aoroa, as there are now some thirty or forty children there, and they have also to raise the Aratapu school. The Chairman evidently contemplates killing the two birds with one stone, but his shot even if made would miss both birds. The site proposed is a very low one and is so surrounded by creeks as to be unsafe for school children some of whom would prob ably be found drowned each year if school were there. It is just at that part of the ' road which is flooded every winter, and would be no improvement on the present Aratapu site. It would be most unjast to Aratapu to carry the present school a mile from the settlement and thus inconvenience more than three-fonrths of the 150 scholars now on the roll just to save the Board’s finances.' Aratapu is entitled to its school and is also entitled to have it made get-at-able in winter. The, Chairman and the Board’s architect have bath made themselves acquainted with the position of affairs and should at once decide upon some reasonable course of action, Aoroa wants a school, but not at the expence of Aratapu. Were there a really excellent- site between the two places the plan might be feasible, but there is not. Between Dargaville and Aratapu there is no school, and the A oroa school, if placed as far from the Totara Mill on the Mangawhare side as Mr Udy proposes to place it on this side, would serve for the residents about Mount Wesley as well as those at Totara Mill.