A room full of passionate parents and politicians voiced their concerns at the thought of their community's school possibly closing.
The first meeting was held Thursday night to discuss the 2015 Program and Accommodation Review Committee. The Greater Essex County District School Board has decided to review General Amherst, Harrow District and Kingsville District high schools as well as Western Secondary School and Harrow Public School.
Peggy Thompson is a parent with two children heading to General Amherst in September. "Every community needs a high school, every community can have a high school," says Thompson. "Maybe we need to start looking at the higher level of board employees and start stripping away and looking at where we can cut corners at a board level to bring our costs down (in order) to keep our community schools."
Public board Superintendent of Education and Accommodations Todd Awender says this process isn't just about seeing what school to close. "This truly is a committee put together to look for whatever creative solutions we can come up with that are going to help students and programming opportunities. They're going to help with budgetary issues as well," says Awender.
The next public meeting will be March 2 at Harrow District High School starting at 6:30pm.
"We're going to all fight loud, hard and clear -- don't close a community school. Find other ways to trim your budget, but don't touch the community schools," says Thompson.
