Jaime Smith has two children at Frank H. MacDonald school and another at home.
She wants them to stay in the area when they reach middle school, not be dispersed among other schools, and hopes school board representatives get that point.
Tonight a meeting will be held to discuss the fate of East Pictou Middle School at 6:30 p.m. at the school. EPMS is one of five schools in the midst of a school closure study process.
Smith said she and her husband moved to the area because they wanted to live in a rural environment. Her husband had gone to East Pictou and it was their hope that their children would be able to too.
She said she hopes the school board takes into account the impact on students and keeps that at the fore of their decision making. She believes extracurricular activities in particular could suffer, because parents may not be able to drive the longer distance to take their kids to different events.
At a meeting hosted by East Pictou Middle School Advisory Committee in January, the community members in attendance rallied behind a third option suggested from the floor that would see Frank H. MacDonald become a P-8 school.
That is one that Tim Houston, a parent of children in the school system and the PC Candidate for Pictou East, is backing.
“It just doesn’t make sense to split kids and friendships apart, disperse them to different schools for grade 7 and 8 and then try to pull them back together for high school,” Houston said.
Houston stressed it’s important for parents to come out and voice their opinions.
“We can’t sit quietly by and let this unfold,” he said. “The reality is that these type of issues are decided by what reaction government gets from the people. We need to show them a strong reaction.”
