Province urged to recognize uniqueness of rural education

There’s no debating AMHERSTBURG the need for change in rural education, but just what that change should be was the subject of a meeting Tuesday of teachers, school board trustees, administrators and provincial officials.

“It needs flexibility and communication with parents, municipalities and the community partners,” said Lou Rinaldi, Liberal MPP for Northumberland Quinte-West and parliamentary secretary to the minister of municipal affairs.

“Boards and ministries can’t act in isolation anymore.”

Rinaldi’s visit was part of a provincial tour by three Liberal parliamentary secretaries seeking input on how to deal with the challenges of rural education.

Amherstburg is the fourth stop on the tour.

The provincial government has also set up an email address for those wishing to comment (information.met@ontario.ca) and has posted an online survey (www. ontario.ca/form/survey-ontariosrural-education-strategy).

Rinaldi said the hope is to have a report ready by midsummer.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” Rinaldi said of the potential solutions.

Currently there are 600 schools in Ontario that are less than half full. Of those, 121 have been recommended for closure by school boards with a disproportionate number being rural schools.

Local representatives have seen first-hand the effect of declining enrolment and its accompanying reduction in funding can have.

Less than a year ago, the Greater Essex County School Board closed its first community high school in Harrow with plans to move about 200 students to Kingsville Secondary School.

“The community feels let down because they couldn’t have a community school,” said teacher Erin Roy, an OSSTF representative.

“Now kids are bused to Kingsville, which is not even part of their municipality – Essex.”

While the local Catholic school board has no plans to close any schools in the near future, the public system still has thousands of empty spaces to eliminate.

Wednesday the public board will receive final recommendations from its current accommodation review committees on the future of five Leamington elementary schools.

Final recommendations for two Forest Glade elementary schools will also be tabled Wednesday.

“Living in a rural community is an intangible,” said Dave Taves, a public board trustee.

“How do you balance that intangible against the dollars and cents?”

To combat the abundance of under-utilized space, the province is urging boards to share facilities, explore more community hubs and engage in future planning with municipalities.

Public board trustee Al Halberstadt also pointed out that current regulations can be hurdles to community hubs.

“Hubs, we feel, are handicapped by the rules of cost recovery,” Halberstadt said. “If we do get partners, it’s not possible with the rules.”

Though the province is encouraging boards to share facilities, Rinaldi said there’s no appetite to explore the consolidation of the public and Catholic systems.

“No,” Rinaldi said of the possibility. “I think the climate at Queen’s Park is none of the three parties are interested in exploring that possibility.”

Those in attendance said there won’t be any real changes to rural education unless the government is willing to change it’s funding formula to offer smaller, rural schools more support. There were also requests to consider the roles rural schools have in their communities.

The accommodation review process, which the province changed two years ago, was criticized for being too short. There was a desire for more community input and better communication or explanations from school boards.

“Change the process and change the funding formula rather than penalizing boards for empty spaces,” Halberstadt said. “I don’t see the formula changing, but that’s the answer.”