SHIRLEY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20957, 11 September 1933, Page 7

SHIRLEY INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PEESS. j Sir, —On reading the report in "The j Press" of the meeting of protest held in the St. Albans School, one is led to

believe that Mr Sheppard endeavoured to convey the impression that he and his committee are not taking "a narrow, dog in the manger view" of the decision of the Education Department, to erect an intermediate school at Shirley. However, the attitude of Mr Sheppard and one or two members of his committee has been antagonistic to the project all along, and they seem unable to grasp the fact that by building a new school and taking the fifth and sixth standards from the three adjacent schools, overcrowding there will cease. There must be some strange parents in that district, as one is reported as saying that "he did not intend to send his children to the Shirley Intermediate School, but would send them to West Christchurch or anywhere else." It is hard to understand one who threatens to send his children a much greater distance because the Education Department will not let him have a new school at St. Albans. But he apparently agrees with the new system of intermediate schools, or else he would not let his children go to West Christchurch. The majority opinion throughout the district affected is the same; but a few object to the site. Regarding Mr Thwaites, the headmaster, and his objection to the site as being "at a dead end"; perhaps he had in mind the tram .and trolley-bus terminuses, which help very considerably in point of accessibility. The department now owns 12 acres of land at the proposed site, which area will be sufficient for educational buildings for very many years to come. Children from as far afield as Marshland, Burwood, Dallington, and even North Beach by trolley-bus will be able to attend the new school; but if placed where Mr Sheppard wants it, it would be too far for all these children. I sincerely hope that the Shirley School Committee will get busy and back up the Education Department and the Education Board, who should know the educational requirements of the district much better than Mr Sheppard thinks he does.—Yours, etc., „ A , SHIRLEY PARENT. September 9, 1933.