Very cynical after the process

Letter to the Editor,
I have been watching with interest and disgust, the hoops the accommodation review committee is being asked to jump through.
For those of you that are less familiar with the process of accommodation review it is initiated by the Board of Education when they wish to review the accommodation needs of students, current enrollment and intend to identify the best option for students in the years to come.
When I agreed to sit on the committee years ago as it pertained to the future of Alberton Central School, which was my understanding of the purpose of the process. However, this was not the reality of the work of the committee and it became clear the process was about dollars and cents not communities and children.
You see for many people their community school is about more that the building where children receive their education. It is part of the fabric of your community where people meet, share and work together towards a common goal and celebrates successes and achievements. As a child, I attended Alberton School and was happy to have the opportunity to send my children to our community school and build on the experiences that others had shared with me.
Unfortunately, the accommodation review process does not place any value on these experiences and looks solely at the bottom line and the economics of education and facilities.
I must say, I did not enter into the process this cynical all those years ago. However, I quickly came to the same conclusion as many of those on the current accommodation review committee examining the future of Donald Young, Sturgeon Creek and Cross Roads School. In plain and simple terms, the committee members are a pawn in a larger game. In my experience the decision had been made long before the first meeting and the options presented had already been carefully reviewed. The work of the committee is merely an act of placing a rubber stamp on a decision which has already been made.
To me hindsight is valuable and as I reflect on the current process and my experience on the accommodation review committee my efforts and those of the current committee seem futile. At the end of the day it was like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it really did not matter where you were sitting.
–Christine Hampton