Comment
On the edge of relevance
Schools are community places. In the best circumstances, they are places that bring us together, whether we have kids attending or not. Sports. Music. Theatre. They are places that welcome folks in from the cold to walk the halls. They host giant pumpkin weighing competitions and other activities in the front yard. In turn, we raise funds for recreation facilities, music programs and such. In this and many other ways, schools become intertwined with the vitality and wellbeing of the community around them.
What happens when they close? Pinecrest and Queen Elizabeth elementary schools were shuttered last year as part of a province-wide initiative to address declining enrollment and rising costs. Much noise and fury ensued. As a result, some schools were saved. One found new life sharing its space with a culinary centre. Pinecrest and Queen Elizabeth schools, however, now sit empty and dark. Both are looking for a new purpose in their communities. One group has plans to transform Pinecrest into 50 housing units for seniors.
Queen Elizabeth remains in the hands of the school board (Hastings Prince Edward District School Board). It is still dark, despite the fact that this municipality has made it clear that it wants the school and property. The County sees an opportunity for this property, driven by its location in the middle of town and proximity to a wide array of services and amenities, primarily with a view toward the creation of affordable housing. Last week, Mayor Steve Ferguson was put in the awkward position of asking the school board to reconsider the County’s interest in the project. This is odd.
If not the community that envelops this school and the opportunity it represents to address a critical social need, then who?
It is one of the less well understood challenges created when we amalgamate institutions such as our school board, hospitals, and municipalities—that these new entities soon focus intently on the centre, but overlook the nuance and unique interests of the surrounding communities they serve.
When you sit every day in Belleville, the world radiates from that centre. It shapes the way you look at your responsibilities. In time, parochial concerns, worries, and complaints become less relevant. It isn’t a human problem, but a structural one. The further they are away from the community they serve, the less they comprehend the cultural and emotional level in which many communities are integrated with these places.
In the fervent ambition to gain efficiencies and lower costs (that never seems to materialize), managers lose sight of the world beyond their own community. It is how these places become assets or widgets to be maintained, insured and managed. The intrinsic relationship between these properties and their neighbours is too abstract for a spreadsheet—especially when they are being leaned upon from the ministry to which they report. It is easier to make hard cuts when you are oblivious to the deep connection between these places and the community.
Among the more bizarre notions about the future of this particular property is that the public school board is contemplating transferring Queen Elizabeth to the Catholic board. It is hard to imagine a more disrespectful and damaging choice by the board.
When Pinecrest and Queen Elizabeth schools were closed, most students were transferred to an under-utilized part of the high school in Picton (Prince Edward Collegiate Institute). There was much anguish and uncertainty with the prospect of six-year-olds sharing a school with teenagers; of grade one kids navigating the gauntlet of smokers to and from the school each day.
Some parents found another way to resolve this dilemma, by enrolling them at St. Gregory’s Catholic elementary school in Picton. Enrollment has swelled. This is not likely due to a rise in religious affiliation, but more a desire for their children to attend a dedicated K to 8 elementary school. So the Catholic school is seeking a larger building, such as the newly vacated Queen Elizabeth, to accommodate their rising enrollment.
It would be a grotesque mistake for the public board to agree to this request or any other proposal before that of the municipality. In fairness, the board is guided by criteria established by the province that sets out a ranking order about who shall be eligible to acquire closed schools. Bizarrely municipalities are down the list, behind the Catholic school board.
It would, however, be foolish beyond absurdity to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating PECI to accommodate primary school students compelled to move there, only to see them retreat back to Queen Elizabeth under the Catholic board.
More importantly, Picton and the County have a housing crisis. If this property can help to address this dire need than we must all work together to make it happen.
If our trustees and school boards aren’t able to move the County to the top of the list, it is time for our MPP Todd Smith to intervene.
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