26 October 2000
Dear Mr Forrest
Thank you for your recent letters concerning school expansion. Could I express a few
observations?
You talk in your opening line of the board's decision to construct a 10-13 campus at Grand
Sac yet in the paragraph on 'consultation' you talk of how a definitive decision is to be
taken at the Dec board meeting, so has the decision been taken or not?
Under what circumstances would the board be prepared to change its decision?
If an overwhelming vote from parents were to oppose the decision would the board back
down?
Would it be true to say that the overriding thing in favour of grand sac is economic(free
land)?
Would it be possible to have a 6-13 or 1-13 on the grand sac campus?
You say that this is probably " the most important decision the foundation will take
" yet is it not true that the board had no intention of involving parents or staff in
a public way until you received over twice the number of votes required to demand an extra
ordinary meeting?
Whilst we (parents) were aware that a second campus was to be built, an option as far away
as grand sac was never muted,indeed the last I remember were options in Genthod , Versoix
or Vaud and not for a split secondary education. This site as you so rightly say will
bring about a human resoursces/personnel nightmare for teachers as well as parents.
How does the board imagine parents can get children to 2 campuses without having to resort
to paying for the extremely expensive (profit making?) bus service?
In effect we are being asked to pay, at a guess, another 2000 ch per child for a
lengthy bus journey which most parents have tried to avoid by living as close to La Chat
as possible. This is in effect an increase in school fees.
Whilst writing to you can I remind you of the public promise that was made to parents at
the AGM by Dr Human,( a promise I note was not minuted) that parents should receive
answers to questions regarding the Criner affair. When will the answers to our
questions be made available?
I was also under the impression that draft guidelines regarding a policy on handling
such an affair in the future would be available by the end of June ready for
implementation sept 2000. I am very disappointed that these deadlines were not achieved.
Will the parents who were directly and negatively affected by this whole episode have any
opportunity to reveiw the guidelines before they are published? I look forward to
receiving your comments and the answers to my questions.
Yours sincerely
Celia Marsh