COLUMN: Covering an announcement...or not

Would she or wouldn’t she?

That was the talk all Friday morning, May 11, as Education Minister Karen Casey inched her way towards a stop at Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School.

Would she announce a new high school is on the way?

School board superintendent Phil Landry said he was told she’d be announcing the high school building was being converted into a junior high school (part of a suggestion put forward by the board). So if you do the math that would suggest a new high.

Robert Manuel, the executive assistant to Yarmouth MLA Richard Hurlburt, said she might be saying something, but he didn’t think she was saying that.

Don’t bother coming to the high school one person told me. You’ll definitely want to be there said another.

When Casey arrived at the high school, an alert quickly went out summoning all students and staff to the gymnasium for an assembly. Things certainly had the feel of an announcement. But some of those traveling with Casey felt an assembly was maybe a little over the top, given what she would, or more to the point wouldn’t, be saying.

When the minister stepped up to the podium, she indicated she was there to give “an update and a message.”

Aha, no announcement.

But then she started talking about new facilities in the province, capital construction lists and the school board’s desire and identified need for different facility usage in the area. Then came talk of the master plan.

“On that master plan, one of the recommendations coming from your school board to my department is that we look at building a new high school in Yarmouth. That is a recommendation that I am prepared to take to my colleagues in cabinet to ask for their consideration to make that happen…I will be asking them to approved a new high school for Yarmouth.”

So is a recommendation an announcement?

The people who followed at the podium certainly thought so, all of them incorporating the A-word into their thank you’s.

But just when is this list going to cabinet? Are we talking months or years?

“There’s not been a new list since 2003 so it’s time to take a list,” Casey said. “We’ll be taking that capital list to cabinet within the next few months…and my commitment here is that this (school) will be on that list.”

So was this an announcement I asked her?

She called it more an expression of information.

“I wouldn’t say it’s an announcement, but it’s an update and a message of where we go with future buildings and new schools to accommodate the population of this town.”

Seeing whereas it’s been a year since the school board proposed a new high school for consideration, its little surprise that any news the minister brought her was welcomed news.

Especially if it means an announcement will follow.

(THIS COLUMN ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD IN MAY 2007)