Ontario’s schools at risk
Education minister mum on number of shutdowns, but 600 reportedly in danger
Education Minister Mitzie Hunter cannot yet say how many Ontario schools are on the chopping block.
“I’m not going to provide you with an arbitrary number based on the question you’ve asked,” Hunter told reporters Tuesday at Queen’s Park.
“It’s very important that school boards provide an opportunity for input from the community and that’s what the Pupil Accommodation Review Guideline helps them to do,” she said, before walking away from a media scrum.
Later, the minister’s office said school closings are “a strictly local process” and “any information provided to the government by the board is not final.”
“We need to wait until the board completes a final accommodation review and a final decision is made by the school board trustees to receive reliable data. Once we receive this data, we will be pleased to share it with you.”
The issue was top of mind at the legislature because Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is calling for a province-wide moratorium on all school closures.
It is believed that more than 600 schools across Ontario are threatened with shuttering. Brown wants a review of the “flawed” guidelines education boards use to determine what facilities to keep open.
“School closures have a devastating impact on our communities,” the Tory leader said.
While most of the endangered schools are in rural areas, there are some in urban Ontario.
“This isn’t just about rural school closures anymore. The threat of closures are devastating families in cities as well, including right here in the GTA,” Brown said.
Despite the inefficiency of a province funding public and Catholic English and French-language schools, Brown has no intention to push for a single school system, he said.
“That’s not what today’s about. It’s not a debate or a conversation that I’m starting,” he said.
Hunter similarly refused to discuss the controversial matter of public funding for Catholic schools.
In the House, the Tories shifted their focus from soaring hydro bills, which had dominated the legislative proceedings until Premier Kathleen Wynne’s plan to cut electricity rates 25 per cent last week, to the issue of school closures.
“After13 years of waste, and scandal after scandal, the Wynne Liberals are trying to balance the books on the backs of our students by fasttracking school closures,” said Brown. His pressure forced Hunter to announce that her department is launching “an engagement on new approaches to supporting education in rural and remote communities.”
The minister noted that, since 2003, the Liberals have spent “more than $16 billion in school infrastructure,” opening 810 new schools and renovating an additional 780. Of those, nearly 450 new or revamped schools are in the countryside.
Hunter dismissed Brown’s call for unilateral action from the government.
“Patrick Brown has no plans on how to build up our education system in rural Ontario,” she said.
“His arbitrary moratorium on school closures would limit locally elected school boards from collaborating with their communities and implementing creative solutions based on the needs of their students and their communities.”
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the closings are a problem, but skirted a question about the cost to taxpayers of keeping partially empty schools open, particularly in rural areas.
“Urban schools are important, too, and the school closures are out of hand here in Ontario,” said Horwath.
“There needs to be a real look at what this government is doing to small towns and to neighbourhoods. It’s not right.” With files from Rob Ferguson