BELL SOUNDS FOR RIDEAU HIGH
School board approves closure
Despite the emotional pleas from parents and students that rang out Tuesday night, Rideau High School will be closed.
After a long meeting of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board — at which 35 people signed up to make their case to the trustees — the board moved ahead with the controversial closure of the school on St. Laurent Boulevard.
Students at Rideau will be transferred to Gloucester High School in September, and that school will be given a new name, those at the school board meeting heard.
About 125 people had packed the session.
Supporters had hoped for a lastminute reprieve for Rideau, after a meeting last month at which trustees had recommended closing the school by a vote of seven to five.
The school is less than half full, and narrowly escaped closure eight years ago.
Supporters intensified their lobby efforts ahead of Tuesday’s final vote, once again busing people to the meeting at the office the school board on Greenbank Road.
Aboriginal, Inuit and community groups had told the board how valuable the school is to vulnerable students.
Those campaigning to save the school also included two senators and the Vanier and Overbrook community associations.
But their efforts were for naught.
Staff contend that keeping the school open is unfair to students because their course choices are restricted compared to larger high schools.
Rideau students deserve the same “quality education” offered to others at the board, in the words of director of education Jennifer Adams. The extra resources poured into Rideau to keep it open also meant less was available for other high schools at a time when the board faces financial constraints.
Several current and former students at Gloucester told trustees they would welcome Rideau students.
Akash Sharma, who graduated from Gloucester in 2014, promised the Rideau students would be greeted with “love and affection.”
Gloucester is also a multicultural school, he said. Rideau students “will be able to blend right in,” he said.
Tuesday’s debate was emotional, with several speakers moved to tears.
“Closing Rideau would be devastating,” said parent Julia Picotte, her voice breaking.
Her daughter, Sarah, has flourished in the learning disabilities class and will graduate this year as an honour roll student.
Sarah Picotte said she used to be shy and introverted in Grade 9, but graduates from Rideau this year “and look at me, I’m speaking in front of all of you.”
The school offered all the courses she needed, said Picotte.
“Do you really want to make my friends have to start all over again at a new school, adding the anxiety and stress of changing schools to their already challenging lives?”
Do you really want to make my friends have to start all over again at a new school?