Province urges local efforts to support rural, remote education
School boards advised to share resources as a cost-saving measure
It’s come too late to save Harrow District High School, but Sherry Bondy hopes Minister of Education Mitzie Hunter’s plan to seek new approaches to rural education will save another community’s school.
Bondy, now an Essex town councillor for Ward 4, spent the better part of a year fighting to keep Harrow District open.
“Strong rural communities are as important as strong urban ones,” Bondy said.
“When you start closing rural schools, families may make a decision not to stay there. You weaken rural economies.”
This week, the provincial Liberal government announced plans to gather feedback on ways to support education in rural and remote communities.
On Monday, Hunter and Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli sent a letter to school boards and municipalities outlining plans to encourage school boards to share space, support community hubs to use excess space, and ensure school boards and municipalities work together to consider the effects.
On Tuesday, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown called for a moratorium on school closures and a review of the provincial guidelines.
Since 2011, 277 schools have been closed across Ontario. An estimated 600 schools are facing an accommodation review with many of those being in rural communities.
The Greater Essex County District School Board has closed 20 schools since 2000.
The public board is currently studying the future of its five elementary schools in Leamington and three in Windsor’s Forest Glade development.
Since 2000, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has closed 19 schools plus two St. Michael’s Alternative High School sites.
Both boards have also built some new schools as part consolidations involving closed buildings.
Paul Picard, director of education for the Catholic board, said school boards must absorb some financial pain to protect rural education.
“We’re carrying rural schools significantly under capacity because we had said we’re not going to abandon communities,” Picard said.
“In some areas, if we close a school, the next school could be 30 kilometres away.
“Rural schools present different problems. It’s hard to achieve economies of scale to operate efficiently.”
Picard said St. John the Evangelist in Woodslee, St. Anthony’s in Harrow and Our Lady of Annunciation in Stoney Point are examples of schools that would be in trouble if they were located in the city.
“We’re absolutely not considering closing those schools,” Picard said.
“We won’t abandon those communities from both the educational and faith perspectives. Sometimes, there’s more than financial considerations to take into account.”
While Hunter’s letter was essentially a rehash of previous announcements, it served to emphasize some points.
The government made it clear it expects school boards to co-operate more closely than they have in the past.
Currently, only 37 of Ontario’s 4,900 schools have joint-use agreements in which pupils from differing boards share facilities.
Hunter wrote that going forward, before any money is granted for new capital projects, the ministry will ensure that joint-use options had been explored.
“That’s always been part of any of our business cases for capital projects, but I think the minister is reminding boards,” said Todd Awender, superintendent of education overseeing school accommodation for the Greater Essex County District School Board.
“I think this (letter) is a result of so many school accommodation reviews going on across the province. There are hundreds of them right now.”
Awender said he can see opportunities to expand the agreements area boards have on transportation and energy into shared use of facilities.
“I could see an athletic facility and track being shared by two schools,” Awender said. “Those would be relatively easy to do.”
Picard said he would have no issue sharing schools or more services with the public board and could even imagine office staff doing work for more than one board.
He added rural education is particularly well-suited for sharing resources.
“They’re not asking us to give up our faith-based identity should there be opportunities to share resources and generate economies of scale,” Picard said.
“Some people might think we’re starting down a slippery slope, but I don’t share that view.
“We should be doing more together. How can anyone argue against using limited resources more efficiently?”
Both boards also support the idea of using more community hubs to save schools, but believe the province has to be realistic about what’s possible. Operating costs remain huge hurdles to community hubs.
“If we’re going to encourage community hubs, we can’t stick to getting fair-market value,” Picard said.
“These non-profit groups can’t afford the actual cost per square foot we pay. The province has to subsidize it if they want to keep these buildings viable.”