Blake Ellis & Heather Wright/The Independent

Two candidates for public school trustees were surprised to hear concerns from the Lambton-Kent District School Board that they’d used the parking lot of a school to talk with parents.

Chris White and Joselyn Young Cormier organized a meeting with parent’s from Zone Central School in late September, after hearing concerns about the reorganization of the classrooms at the Bothwell School.

An informal public meeting was held at the Bothwell area school on Saturday, Sept. 26 after school administrators decided to remove one teacher at the school of 72 students, creating three classrooms each containing three grades.

Parents raised concerns the move was made without talking to them about the three-grade splits. And they added the rural school on the edge of Chatham-Kent was basically the same size as last year when 74 students attended.

“My daughter in is Grade 8. She’s in the 6-7-8, and she was really excited about the first week, two weeks of school, and she loved coming to school. But since everything has changed, she doesn’t want to come to school. She says the first two weeks she felt like she learned a lot of stuff, and once it went into the grouping of the classes, she hasn’t learned anything,” said one of the parents.

The parent expressed concern at the Sept. 26 meeting their child would not be ready for Grade 9.

Oct. 6, Trustee Randy Campbell, the trustee who serves the Bothwell area and is seeking re-election, raised the concern at the board meeting that the meeting was held on school grounds.

Board CEO Gary Girardi said there was no request made to the school board to use the Zone Township Central School for the meeting; therefore it was not a sanctioned event.

Trustee Jane Bryce called it a political person taking advantage of an issue to get votes in the upcoming trustee elections, saying the candidates hosting the event want to undermine the school board.

Deputy Chair Roberta Northmore called on the school board to look at its policies and procedures in dealing with this matter.

Northmore called hosting the event at the school without permission a form of trespassing.

White told The Independent “The parking lot of the school came from a suggestion of one of the people attending. If something was not done correctly it was an oversight.”

Young Cormier said “the school parking lot was chosen simply because it was the most obvious spot to meet parents of the school.”

Both candidates said they wanted to meet with the parents because they had been hearing about the concerns and Young Cormier said they “made it clear that we were not the board and were there to hear their concerns.”

The board has tasked Girardi to look into the meeting further.