IT'S sad that as a society we're still prone to fear those we see as different. That's what happened at Tuesday night's public meeting on the alternate program at Balmoral.
While residents expressed numerous legitimate concerns, too often the conversation degraded to alarmist warnings of teenage scofflaws damaging property, harming elementary students and selling drugs.
Most people wouldn't think to make such comments about students of different ethnic backgrounds, but the stigma surrounding those who don't succeed in the regular school system perseveres. Most of the students attending alternate programs are not there for crime, drugs or violence. Some students work during regular school hours, deal with mental illness or family situations or have different learning styles. The regular school system's one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't work for every student, and those kids shouldn't be condemned to never finish high school. That school has to go in someone's backyard.
To be fair, residents in the Balmoral neighbourhood have plenty to complain about. The school district has done an abysmal job of making the community aware of when and how decisions are being made, let alone including the community in the process. The loudest complaint Tuesday was that the meeting was taking place two months after the initial decision was made.
Traffic concerns are real, especially if the district also puts adult students at Balmoral. But those problems are much easier to address if we get past this paranoia about the students themselves - who only want to go to school.
