Trustees recommend closing five west-end public schools
Public school trustees have recommended closing five schools in the west end of the city. D. Aubrey Moodie and Greenbank middle schools, Century and Leslie Park English elementary schools and Grant Alternative were picked off one by one at the meeting of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
Staff have recommended closing seven schools. Debate on the fate of Regina Street PS and J.H. Putnam middle school was still going on at deadline. About 70 people attended the meeting to listen to parents make final pleas to save their schools.
Parents have been lobbying for months, with particularly strong campaigns to save Regina Street, J.H. Putman, Leslie Park, Grant Alternative and Century public schools.
“I’m angry and utterly frustrated with everything,” said Desiree Imeish, who has two children at Century, after the vote. Earlier in the evening she made a presentation to trustees, apologizing for being emotional, but saying she was frustrated the school board did not seem receptive to the good arguments in favour of keeping the school open. “No one listens and no one cares.” Century has a large number of immigrant and refugee children. Supporters argued those parents were less able to lobby the school board because they don’t speak English. The school is less than half full.
School board staff said the board has to face “fiscal reality.”
The board has 11,500 empty pupil spaces spread across a district of 72,000 students. At the same time it needs to add 2,500 spaces in fast-growing areas where schools are crowded.
The board is trying to balance where buildings are located and where they are needed.
Trustees make the final decision in early March, but it is unlikely there will be major changes from the recommendations made Monday by all trustees sitting as a committee of the whole.
Century students would be sent to Carleton Heights school.
D. Aubrey Moodie students would be transferred to Bell High, which would expand to become a Grade 7 to 12 school. The board is trying to get rid of middle schools.
Merivale High would also add the international baccalaureate program, an academically rigorous program not now offered in the west end.
Greenbank Middle School students would be sent to Sir Robert Borden High School, which also would expand to include Grades 7 to 12. Leslie Park students would be redirected to Briargreen PS.
The changes would take effect in September.
The already emotional debate also hit some extra-raw nerves Monday when some parents at J.H. Putman middle school found out about a proposal from trustee Anita Olsen Harper to spare the school but turn it into a centre for French immersion.
Olsen Harper had planned to introduce an amendment to move the English program students out of Putman and into Pinecrest Elementary. By deadline her amendment had not been debated.
Some parents who have children in Putman’s English program felt betrayed by both their trustee and fellow parents.
“It’s neighbour against neighbour,” parent Juliya Volfovitch said in an email to all trustees Monday morning with the title “French parents against English parents.” Her son is in the Grade 7 English program at Putman.
Some French-immersion parents were lobbying on behalf of Olsen Harper’s motion because it means their children would remain at Putman, she said in an interview.
“It’s very unfortunate that parents are against each other,” Volfovitch said. “But everybody has their own interest, for their own child, it’s understandable.”
She said it would be unfair to “kick out” Putman’s English kids and send them to Pinecrest PS, which has a poor reputation, whether deserved or not. “Some people say, ‘It’s immigrant families, it’s poor families. I don’t want my kids to go there. It has low EQAO results.’
“It’s very unfortunate. It (Pinecrest) is probably a great school,” said Volfovitch, adding that she’s an immigrant herself. Her husband, Leo Berliant, sent an email to Olsen Harper accusing her of demonstrating a “cold ignorance” for children who for various reasons are not able to be in French immersion, and “putting our kids life in total ruins.”
Another parent with a child in Grade 7 English at Putman said she was “blindsided” by the idea. “I’m at a loss for words,” said Nancy Cober. “It sounds like, ‘We don’t care about the English kids. Let’s just kick them out.’
“I’m obviously very steamed. I feel like I’m getting shafted, not only by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board but by parents whose kids are in the French immersion program.”
If trustees vote in favour of the proposal, her son would move to Pinecrest PS next fall for one year, then go to high school.
“That’s not going to fly. I’m telling you right now, I’ll switch him to the Catholic school board and say adios to the OCDSB.”
However, two parents who were key organizers of the campaign to save Putman told trustees that they support maintaining the school as dual-track.
The debate over Putman underlines a wider tension over the future of “dual-track” schools. Board staff have said the dwindling number of children enrolled in English has made it impossible to offer the program at every school. They have suggested consolidating English programs into separate schools in some cases, which they say would provide stronger programming, more flexibility in class arrangements and greater opportunities for teachers to collaborate.
But some parents have fiercely opposed the loss of neighbourhood schools that offer both English and French-immersion programs and the chance for children to easily switch between them.
About 70 per cent of elementary children in the board begin in French immersion but many switch to English by the end of Grade 8.