School closure studies on hold

Elementary school closure studies on the Mountain and in Dundas are being put on indefinite hold as the Hamilton public school board awaits new guidelines from the province.

A revised accommodation strategy schedule presented to trustees on the finance and facilities committee now simply lists reviews of 23 schools as “remaining,” rather than identifying them for a specific year as in the past.

The board had already pushed back the start the first of two studies on the west Mountain — covering Chedoke, Gordon Price, Holbrook, Mountview and R.A. Riddell — to next year.

Trustees were forced to cancel plans to proceed this year after the province announced a moratorium on all closure studies last June to allow for new guidelines to address the public’s concerns about the loss of schools, especially in rural areas.

Associate director Stacey Zucker said not scheduling the reviews reflects the uncertainty of when the new guidelines will be in place and will also allow trustees to decide whether to split reviews on the east and west Mountain when they’re ready to proceed.

“This might provide better information to people living in these areas because we can’t right now identify a year because we don’t know,” she said.

“If we identify a year and then it changes, either someone’s looking forward to it and it’s not happening, or the other way around, I guess.”

The board has already conducted 10 elementary reviews over the past seven years resulting in the closure of eight schools, with another 19 planned closures awaiting the opening of eight rebuilds — six of which have received finding.

Committee chair Greg Van Geffen, trustee for Dundas and west Flamborough, supported the review hiatus.

“We know we have planning areas that we’ve got to go into, but we’re not handcuffing ourselves or the coming board,” he said, alluding to a potential trustee turnover following this fall’s municipal election. “We leave it up to them to decide.”