Hammer falls

Board puts plan in motion to close, consolidate County schools

Despite the early snowstorm, the Hastings-Prince Edward District School Board trustees travelled to Prince Edward Collegiate Institute (PECI) on Monday for their monthly meeting. In an unusual move, they held both their committee and general meetings within hours of each other, both at the large gymnasium in the County’s only high school.

The timing of these meetings left some parents’ heads spinning. Only three days earlier, the board had released its agenda for the meeting, which included detailed plans to manage declining enrollment rates in the district by closing and consolidating schools in Belleville, central Hastings and Prince Edward County.

It was the drastic nature of the County’s plan that caught public attention.

The report recommended closing Pinecrest and Queen Elizabeth elementary schools in 2017, sending all those students to PECI for September 2017, and closing Sophiasburgh Central the following year. PECI would be renovated to accommodate elementary students.

It also recommended tearing down and rebuilding CML Snider school and closing Kente public school, sending the Kente kids to Wellington.

The only two schools not affected by the proposal were Athol-South Marysburgh school in the south and Massassauga- Rednersville school in the north.

During the committee meeting, Prince Edward trustee Jennifer Cobb and Centre Hastings trustee Bonnie Danes both raised concerns about the timing. Both voted against the proposals.

“I just feel that the timeline’s too tight for me to make an informed decision,” Cobb said at the first meeting. She pointed out that she was elected to represent the concerns of County residents. “I’ve had about 50 emails today. People don’t understand the process… in some ways it feels like a decision I’m being forced to make.”

Mandy Savery-Whiteway, secretary of the board and director of education, explained that the recommendation was the first step in a process that would include public consultation.

“I understand that there are some concerns about the ministry of education process, but it is the process that we have. It has been legislated. And it is in front of us now,” Savery- Whiteway said. “It’s incredibly important that we not lose sight of the fact that we have to consider programming for our students… as you’re spreading resources, right across the district, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain solid programming.”

A group of about 40 parents attended the second meeting, hoping to raise their concerns. After an hour of procedure and reading reports, the proposals were approved to move forward without discussion. One parent interrupted the proceeding to ask if she could speak, but was told public input would have to wait until later in the process. At that point, most got up to leave. There was a palpable sense of frustration.

Ryan Aldred’s eldest child attends Queen Elizabeth School, and he worries about the youngster going to school with teenagers.

“There are studies that have been done that show things like smoking rates tend to be predicted by the highest number of grades in a school… we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Ontario, and I would have real concerns about the potential impact from that.”

Aldred is open to change, but thinks it needs to be thought through more.

“I absolutely understand that there’s a need to save costs, the cost of having these big schools halfempty is not something that can be sustainable long-term,” says Aldred. “I think there are ways to do it that mitigates these problems, for example if you were to have two buildings on the same campus here, I think that would work… in the report, it represents this idea as a universal good. There’s no real talk about downside. It’s only these are all the great things that will happen, and I think it should be more well-rounded. I would want to see some of those things being acknowledged.”

Mike Farrell, a parent from Sophiasburgh, has a child in grade two at Sophiasburgh Central School and an infant who would have started there in a few years. He would have liked to have seen more communication before this first round of communications.

“I was a little gutted, but I think most people understand the fiscal realities,” says Farrell. “I don’t think everyone’s just clinging to the old ways. But there is definitely a need for public input… people are feeling, why was there not some form of active public outreach?”

Stephanie Roth, co-chair of the PECI parentteacher council, has a child in grade 12 and another in grade 10 at PECI. She has concerns about the speed at which the changes have come up, and the radical nature of the proposed changes.

“They need to look at the way that they communicate with the public. This is unacceptable. The timing was very, very fast. We were notified on Friday,” says Roth. “The timelines are of concern. It’s very fast—five months to seven months. That’s really fast… a moratorium should be put forward as a motion so the ministry could give us more time to consider these changes.”

Roth is sceptical about the timing of the proposed changes, which would see PECI renovated to accommodate K – 8 students by September 2017.

We need to learn from the challenges that were faced by other schools that were being renovated and built, especially here at this high school, when it took more than two months to renovate a cafeteria.”

She raised concerns about the ripple effects of school closures— fewer sports teams for elementary students to compete, the cost and timing of increased bus service and the question of what will happen to play equipment funded and installed by the communities around elementary schools. She also worries about the loss of families who may choose to leave the County.

“The ripple effects it’s going to have in the community,” says Roth. “The outer-lying edges who are closer to Belleville, Quinte and Napanee areas may leave Prince Edward County and seek school beyond Prince Edward County, which we don’t want.”

Shelly McFarland, Roth’s co-chair, agrees. She’s also worried about the effect it will have on communities where schools will close.

“A school forms a community,” says McFarland. “If everybody’s [in Picton], there isn’t going to be those communities in Bloomfield or Sophiasburgh. So it makes a difference.”

Roth says the Ministry of Education should take another look at their mandate. She feels the ministry is biased in favour of urban areas, increasing funding where population is dense while stunting growth in communities struggling to grow.

“We know it’s going to affect this school,” says Roth. “But we also know Prince Edward County. We are Prince Edward County, born and raised, and we hate to see schools go, unfortunately. The trends are declining kids, and we have to do something. I just think this is so drastic.”

The Basics

Five of the County’s seven elementary schools are targeted for closure according to recommendations presented to the Hastings-Prince Edward District School Board on Monday. Accommodation Review Committees (ARC) will be established to consider the closing of Pinecrest Memorial Elementary School in Bloomfield, and Queen Elizabeth School in June 2017 with students from these schools attending Prince Edward Collegiate Institute. The Picton high school will be modified to accommodate classes from kindergarten to Grade 12. In 2018 Sophiasburgh Central School will close and students transferred to PECI.

Kente Public School in Ameliasburgh and CML Snider Elementary School in Wellington will be amalgamated with a new kindergarten to Grade 8 school to be built in Wellington by 2020.

It likely means a longer bus ride for more than 870 students in the County. The Student Enrolment/School Capacity Committee counters that students “will experience an adverse impact on learning for students due to declining enrolment.” It also enables the school board to divert $15 million of capital improvements identified by the Ministry of Education at the five schools targeted for closure, toward improvements at its remaining schools and the development and building of a new school in Wellington.

The committee report says that PECI can be modified to provide “appropriate learning spaces and outdoor areas” for elementary students by the commencement of classes in September 2017. It says students in Kente and CML Snider will remain in these schools until the new school is built in Wellington.

The report’s authors suggest that bus routes already exist across the affected regions of the County and that only minor changes will be required to make the transition.

PECI is currently functioning at about 46 per cent of its capacity of 1,200 students and enrolment is projected to decline steadily over the next 10 years. It means there is room to accommodate K-Grade 8 students in the high school building. But questions remain about how parents will respond to the notion of sending kindergarten-aged children to school with teenagers.

Elementary school enrolment is projected to remain flat over the next 10 years.

In Belleville, the report recommends closing Quinte Secondary School and Moira Secondary and building a new high school in the east part of the city by September 2020. Students in the Destinations program will be transferred to a new elementary school planned on the Winston Churchill Elementary School site.