Parents, kids rally against plan to shut eight schools
Emotion counters school board push for fewer vacant pupil places
Dozens of parents from the Regina Street Public School showed up at the first public school board meeting in September wearing matching navy T-shirts and conveying a simple message: Save our school!
Olivia Titus, a Grade 7 student at J.H. Putman, enlisted her mom to help her make a movie featuring students explaining why their school should remain open. The soundtrack is the catchy pop song Stand Up For It.
Across the city, parents and kids are rallying to fight a proposal by Ottawa’s largest school board to close eight schools.
And two “accommodation reviews” that began this month are just the beginning. The OttawaCarleton District School Board plans five years of reviews that will result in the closing of schools across the city and widespread changes to programs and grade configurations. That’s if things go according to plan.
But when it comes to the emotional issue of school closures, anything can happen — or not happen.
Trustees are trying to fix a serious mismatch between where schools are and where they are needed. An estimated 15,000 empty pupil spaces are distributed through schools across a district that serves about 72,000 students.
Some schools are half empty and others in fast-growing areas are crowded.
The board must respond to population trends, says chair Shirley Seward. Staff warn the board can’t afford to keep paying for unused classrooms, or padding the funding to help under-enrolled schools maintain a variety of programs. The province, which funds school boards, is giving a big shove toward school closures by removing the “top up” funding for schools with low enrolment.
It all makes sense on paper. But few things are harder than closing a school. Parents and students are attached. They love the teachers, the programs, the sense of community a school helps to create, the building itself.
“It isn’t just a building,” explains Hari Adnani, a Grade 7 student at J.H. Putman who is circulating a petition among students to keep the school open. “It’s kind of like a house of memories.”
Most parents want their children to attend a school in their own neighbourhood, says trustee Shawn Menard. But maintaining community schools that serve everyone is increasingly difficult because of financial pressures, shifting demographics, and the skyrocketing popularity of French immersion.
Enrolment in English programs is dwindling at elementary schools. Four of the schools on the closure list offer English programs. Staff say some consolidation of English and French-immersion programs at specialty elementary schools is needed to meet the demand for French immersion, strengthen English programming and make it easier to configure classes.
For a snapshot of these trends, consider the eight schools that feed into Woodroffe High School. They now include three schools that offer only the English program, one school that offers only French immersion, and three schools that offer both.
The report recommends changes that would flip that balance on its head. Two schools would close, and programming would switch at those that remain. In the end? The area would be left with one English program school, three French immersion schools, and two schools that offer both.
It’s devilishly complicated. There are flow charts, diagrams and hundreds of pages of reports for the first two accommodation reviews. The western review includes 26 schools. The staff report recommends closing seven elementary and middle schools: Greenbank, J.H. Putman, D. Aubrey Moodie, Grant, Century, Leslie Park and Regina Street. Programming and grade configurations would change at many others. If one piece of the puzzle changes — for instance, trustees decide to keep open a school that has been recommended for closure — plans might have to be altered for multiple schools. Staff consider not only the enrolment at each school, but grade configurations and programs, the condition of buildings, and which high schools the elementary schools feed into.
The eastern secondary review includes Rideau, Gloucester and Colonel By high schools. Staff recommend the closure of Rideau High School, which is less than half full.
The board plans to conduct seven accommodation reviews, covering most of the city.
Trustees and parents still bear battle scars from the past few decades of school closure debates. The last time the public board closed a school was in 2015, when Munster Elementary was shuttered. It had shrunk to 58 students.
Still, some trustees are optimistic things will be easier this time around. They are guided by policy decisions.
They’ve decided, for instance, to eventually eliminate middle schools so students have fewer transitions. The western review recommends closing three middle schools in the area and enlarging three high schools to make room for Grades 7 to 12.
Trustees have also agreed that high schools should be large enough to offer a range of programs — three academic streams and two French-immersion options. In the eastern review, staff recommend that students from Rideau High School move to Gloucester. Both schools are now less than half full.
Decisions are supposed to be made by March 7, 2017. Most changes would take effect in September 2017.
It isn’t just a building. It’s kind of like a house of memories. HARI ADNANI, a Grade 7 student at JH Putman