STANDARD TRANSMISSIONS
To the castle!
By Rik Davie/The Scugog Standard

The Durham District School Board is at it again!
_Every few years they cast their budget-cutting eyes to the north and, invariably, those eyes lock onto one of the gems of public education not just here, but in all of Canada.
_Nestled in the tiny hamlet of Blackstock is a building that houses one of the smallest secondary schools outside of the far north.
_Cartwright High School has a capacity rated for 84 students but 122 attend. It has no gym ... it shares with the public school. It has no theatre facility. A make-shift cafeteria doubles as classroom space. It has more portables than regular classrooms and students brave the cold in winter and heat in summer and the elements - rain, hail, sleet and snow - to travel from class to class ... and no one cares!
_Can you imagine? In a day and age where parents scream bloody murder because their kids have to walk a few blocks to school, and demand the best in computers, equipment and just about any other thing little Johnny or Janey might need to make their child’s educational experience ... well ... effortless, not one parent cares about the drawbacks associated with this tiny little antiquated dungeon and its sheet metal appendages!
_Why? There are a few reasons.
_Most years, it graduates more students per capita who go on to post-secondary success than any other school in the province. Its Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) test results are so high they probably pull up the rest of the region’s average score, and the classes are so small that if your kid skips everybody knows it within minutes of the start of the day.
_Its music students have won honours across the country and the continent! Its educators are among the best anywhere and work very hard for our kids because they know how lucky they are to be teaching in a school that harkens back to the 1950s in both size and style!
_Cartwright High School is, in short, the closest thing to a private school education the likes of me could ever hope for, for my kids and grandkids.
_People are lining up to get in!
_If the Durham District School Board tries, as it does every few years, to close this treasure they can rest assured that the villagers will be at the Whitby castle gates with pitchforks and torches within minutes of the news.
_It’s almost comical that every few years there are enough changes in the roster of trustees and superintendents down at the Wizard of Oz-like chambers of the board that some nitwit decides there are a few bucks to be saved by closing ‘Cartwright.’
_Well, let ’em try. This writer, and the parents of every kid who attends or did attend or might someday attend - and all the school’s past students - are at home right now, sharpening our pitchforks and wrapping rags around sticks.
_Don’t believe me? Ask some former trustees.... A few still have pitchfork scars they can show you ... if they’ll drop their drawers to do so!!!!