County council has supported the Community School Alliance bid to give rural municipalities more control over school closures.
Councillor Chris White moved the request from the alliance which believes the procedure for closing schools is flawed. He explained that Doug Reycraft, past president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and Mayor Southwest Middlesex is chairman of the Community School Alliance. White said in August he expected the HST to be the big topic at AMO, but school closures attracted more attention.
The county asked the province to implement a “smart moratorium” on disputed closings to provide opportunity for the Ministry of Education, school boards, and municipalities to work together to develop policies addressing planning for declining enrollments, a mutually agreed upon accommodation review committee process, and a review of funding to rural and small community schools, and transparency and accountability between municipalities and boards.
White said there are three main issues prompting the request:
– communities are concerned with the school board’s accommodation review process, which it called “flawed” and the impact it has on the socio-economic fabric of communities;
– schools are the hubs of their communities and a better review system is needed to address the education and facility and needs of residents; and
– the system must provide school boards and municipal councils the ability to partner on decisions regarding educational infrastructure.
Finally, he said, there must be an appeal process.
He said the provincial Liberal government came into power in the last election with a two year moratorium on school closures, but now there are many schools threatened again.
He learned at AMO that in some places, three of four rural schools in a single municipal area are being threatened.
He said the current funding formula is partly to blame because schools receive so much per pupil. He has no objection to closing schools in some areas if there are no disputes, but that was not the case in many areas. In Wellington County in the last several years, the Arthur High School was closed, Marden Public School, Harriston Senior was merged with Minto-Clifford Public School, and Drayton had a school merged. Kenilworth Sacred Heart School was closed by the Catholic Board.
As well, there were disputes over the location of Centre Wellington District Secondary School.
White said his township is fortunate. Eden Mills students threatened with being shipped to Guelph were eventually accommodated by moving them to Eramosa Public School.
But White said school boards’ accommodation review committees are a “dog and pony” show. School board staff make recommendations, public meetings are held, and then the school board decides – usually in favour of what staff had proposed.
White said the problem is people feel they have little say, and “Once the decision is made, it’s is permanent. It needs to be more comprehensive.
White said Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne had said at AMO the province is working legislation to consider the municipalities’ complaints, but suddenly action on that bill has stopped.
As for Wellington County, he said, “There are no schools under threat today – but what about tomorrow?”
