Trustees vote to close Westmeath PS
It is all over for Westmeath Public School.
In an emotional meeting Tuesday, Renfrew County District School Board trustees voted to back staff recommendations to close Westmeath Public School and send its students to Beachburg Public School next fall.
As a number of Westmeath residents and Whitewater Region Mayor Hal Johnson watched from the public gallery, trustees explained that the staff report recommendation was primarily based on the aging building’s need for repairs and that only 54 students attend a school that can accommodate 219 students.
Education ministry guidelines state that any school operating at less than 56 per cent of occupancy is up for a student accommodation review. Westmeath PS only uses 26 per cent of its space.
Board vice-chair Wendy Hewitt said the decision was one of the hardest she ever had to make. In the end, she said, she had to set aside the needs of individual communities to think about what was best for the school system as a whole.
“The facts are we are facing a declining enrolment and have over 4,000 student surplus spaces that are not funded by the Ministry of Education,” she said. “This reality is not just in Westmeath and Madawaska area; it will affect other schools in the coming years and has already affected many schools in the past, as we have made a decision to close 11 schools in the past 10 years.
“We all want what is best for our students. We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more,” she said, adding she believes the students will get used to their new surroundings in time.
“I believe they will continue to have a sense of community in Beachburg school,” she said. “Students are more resilient than we give them credit for.”
Trustee Marjorie Adam, who represents North Renfrew, said three schools there have been closed and students relocated to Mackenzie Community School in Deep River. The result has been a successful union, creating a new and vibrant school and community around it, she said.
Adam said aging buildings and shrinking student populations are an ongoing problem for rural schools, and the board has to remain committed to making the hard decisions. Madawaska Public School in Whitney, near the eastern entrance to Algonquin Park, was also axed, with its students to be bused to Sherwood Public School housed within the expanded Madawaska Valley High School in Barry’s Bay.
Trustees unanimously supported the accommodation report and its recommendations, but board chair Dave Shields voted against it, saying the community deserved more time to work out a solution.
Shields praised the Westmeath SOS committee for its professionalism in organizing residents in a show of support for the school, and for coming up with a number of innovative ideas that might work if given a chance. One idea proposed converting the school into a community hub, which might be possible through provincial funding, he said.
“Twelve weeks is not enough time to see if any of these suggestions will work,” Shields said. “If given a chance, I believe their efforts would provide a model for others to follow in rural and northern Ontario.”
Shields said that said by closing the school, the board risks losing funding — $10,000 per student — if Westmeath parents follow through with their threat to pull their kids out of the public school system rather than have them be bused to a school outside of their community. A survey conducted by Westmeath SOS suggested the board would lose 20 to 30 students, meaning as much as $300,000 in lost provincial funding.
Neil Nicholson, head of the SOS committee, said he was disappointed in the outcome but noted the board trustees have to make the numbers fit to the satisfaction of the province. “Unfortunately, we didn’t fit into the provincial model,” he said.
Nicholson admitted getting a warm feeling in seeing how the community stood up together to support the fight, and said that strength will enable them to shape their own future, which could be focused on the sole school in Westmeath, Our Lady of Grace. He said 11 or 12 families are talking about transferring their children to the Catholic school system, three families are considering home-schooling, and five families are looking at transferring to French-language schools, rather than having their children bused to Beachburg.
However, Westmeath Public School’s 110th anniversary celebration will go ahead on June 11, Nicholson said.