School.26 The expansion in education at Kinkora pro- mpted the Sisters of St. Martha to enlarge their convent in 1955, to accommodate more teaching sisters and resident students.

While the transfer of high school students from their local districts to larger schools was generally accepted, it was a different matter when the consolidation process began removing the primary grade students to larger cen- tres. For example, Newton ratepayers built a new one—room school in 1953, fully intending that the primary grades would remain there; and they “really put up a battle” to keep their school.27 Similarly, the people in Middleton hoped to hold on to their school; so in 1964 they built a new two-room school, and in 1967 added a third classroom.28 But while they held on to their schools for a few more years, they could not stop the forces of consolidation.

When the RBI. Department of Education made grade twelve the required final year for completion of high school in 1953, Kinkora school trustees applied to have grade twelve added to their school. They were shocked to learn

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that their request was denied on the grounds that their district already had the highest rate of school taxation in the province; and so the additional expense of building another school seemed unacceptable to the Minister of Education.29 Once again St. Malachy’s Parish was called on to rescue the Kinkora School District. local fund-raising appeals were also organized. P.L. Morris offered to match all contributions of potatoes. The Catholic Women’s League held card parties to raise money. The Sisters of St. Martha donated a plot of land near their convent. The Parish contributed over $21,000.00.30

A new two;room high school was built and opened in September, 1955; it graduated its first grade twelve class of fourteen students in 1956. (See photographs, p. 120)

By 1960, however, Kinkora’s new high school was itself being threatened by consolidation. A Royal Commission on Education (the LaZerte Report) recommended that P.E.I. have about eleven large regional high schools, each of which would include at least twenty school districts as its source of students.31 The government later reduced the minimum number of supporting districts to ten, and in 1961 held plebiscites asking the ratepayers of the various school districts whether or not they wanted a regional high school, and where they wanted regional high schools built.” A major problem arose in East Prince County where four communities were competing for regional high schools: Crapaud, Kensington, Kinkora and Summerside Rural. In addition, religious and community rivalries intruded. Kinkora school trustees perceived an attempt by some districts to portray Kinkora school, with its mainly Catholic teaching staff and administrators, as a “religious school?’ Their fears were expressed in a brief to the Minister of Education, which stated: