CBE votes to shutter Juno Beach Academy amid fading enrolment
Retreating enrolment led CBE trustees on Tuesday to pull the plug on its Juno Beach Academy.
But board members vowed its torch of teaching Canadian military history would be passed to other schools.
Following a recommendation late last year that the school be closed, due mainly to a student population that’s fallen to 15, trustees unanimously — but with sadness — voted to wind up the academy after June 30.
“It gave kids who had the same ideas and passions an opportunity to come together and learn,” said board chair Joy Bowen-Eyre.
“It’s super sad that what was such a great idea couldn’t hang on to its momentum.”
At its enrolment height in 2008, the school named after Canadian troops’ landing zone in the Second World War D-Day invasion — and one that put a focus on the country’s history — boasted 195 students.
But trustees said that with dwindling student numbers and a corresponding move away from that curriculum, those who attended became increasingly resigned to the closure.
“Some of them have already made up their minds and are moving on to their own schools,” said Bowen-Eyre.
Transitioning students will either be able to attend their normally designated schools or Lord Beaverbrook high school, which is adjacent to Juno Beach Academy.
The closing school will be used as an overflow facility during Lord Beaverbrook’s modernization, the board was told.
The school legacy should be the continued study of Canadian history in other CBE classrooms, said trustee Judy Hehr.
“We’ve got to look at how we maintain in all of our schools learning Canadian history, particularly Canadian military history,” said Hehr.
One educational activity at the academy — field trips to Canadian battlegrounds such as Vimy Ridge in France — should also be retained, said trustee Amber Stewart.
Board officials say closing the school will save $375,000.
Its supporters told the board the school’s three moves over the course of its 14-year lifetime also had negative effects on its survival.
The school’s name will be preserved by the CBE for possible future use, said board members.