This just in from Trish Elliot’s Twitter feed. She’s at the Regina Public School Board meeting where they’re deciding the fate of Cathedral’s Connaught School.
Connaught to close in June
— Trish Elliott (@Trish_Elliott) February 12, 2014
She followed that up with…
Amend that: board says Connaught to close in June. People may say different
— Trish Elliott (@Trish_Elliott) February 12, 2014
UPDATE: So the school board objected to the characterization of events in the tweets above. Here was their response…
@PaulDechene @prairiedogmag perhaps a little fact checking is in order prior to blindly retweeting. http://t.co/uVRCq0Rppm
— ReginaPublic Schools (@RegPublicSchool) February 12, 2014
And Trish followed up with…
@RegPublicSchool @PaulDechene technically voted accept report that contains a closure recommendation, not official vote, think, pls check
— Trish Elliott (@Trish_Elliott) February 12, 2014
So… in short, the School Board didn’t actually vote to officially close the school. They just voted on a report that the school ought to close at the end of the school term because engineers deem it will not be safe much beyond that point.
UPDATE #2: Trustee Carla Beck weighed in on the Connaught controversy, essentially agreeing with the more recent characterization of things…
@PaulDechene Motion to receive report and direct admin to identify options for temp relocation of students. Report at http://t.co/eatUvWFp4n
— carla beck (@marsdenbeck) February 12, 2014
@PaulDechene oops http://t.co/uHGmrMmuPz
— carla beck (@marsdenbeck) February 12, 2014
@PaulDechene Motion also to advocate for expedited decision from Ministry of Ed about proposed rebuild of Connaught.
— carla beck (@marsdenbeck) February 12, 2014
Here I was sad (not really) that I couldn’t go to the school board meeting myself. But sitting on my butt in my living room I was able basically to scrum three sources through Twitter. And you got you watch it unfold — misconceptions, corrections and all. Neat.
So presumably once they’ve gone through the motions to close the school will R.B.E. then tweet PD’s PD and say… “NOW you can blindly retweet the school closure” : -)
This reminds me of seeing Red Skelton and Stanley Holloway, both practised ad-libbers, in an exchange which ended with Holloway saying “That was fast.” —beat—“Not good, but fast”.
Well it does help reinforce my disregard for tweeting.
I get why RBE might want to clarify that they haven’t officially closed the school (yet).
But I wish they would have said that in a more graceful way than the scolding about “fact checking” and “blindly retweeting”.
It illustrates quite well one of the many problems with tweeting. As to courtesy, it goes both ways, and since when is it discourteous to call bullsh!t when it’s deserved?
But in the end it’s all just different words for the same eventual effect – closing and demolishing a school. Call it what you like.