Comment
Slow down
School enrollment has declined. Our children learn in older buildings that are expensive to operate and maintain. It is reasonable and proper that the public school board examine the trends and forecasts and, if necessary, consider hard choices to ensure education dollars are spent well.
But 13 days to consider a plan that, according to one scenario, would erase all seven public elementary schools in Prince Edward County? That is not reasonable. Nor proper.
The Long-Term Capital and Accommodation Plan, labelled on every one of its 125 pages as draft, bears a May 20, 2016 date, but was posted by the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board only on June 7. That posting invited public feedback in the form of written submissions until June 10—three days later. Three days after that deadline, trustees on the Student Enrolment/ School Capacity Committee met to approve the plan. This coming Monday, June 20, the plan goes before the full board for final approval.
To be clear, it is a plan. It does not prescribe specific school closures. Well that is not entirely true, either. In the various scenarios outlined in this self-described framework for future decision-making, none contemplate more than three elementary schools remaining in the County. Therefore, according to this plan, once approved, four schools must go. Perhaps all of them. That is the starting point of the conversation.
So let’s talk about this before we decide this is the right plan. What is the rush? The issues, trends and challenges have been with us for years. Parents and the community have many questions. Let’s slow down and have a proper discussion before anything is approved.
The Long-Term Capital and Accommodation Plan offers a worthy examination of the current state of the board’s schools, enrolment, capacity utilization and capital needs. It skips over operating costs, but that is a quibble. The plan lays out guiding principles around transportation, community involvement and demographic trends.
Yet the analysis raises as many questions as it answers. Just one example: CML Snider Elementary School in Wellington is, according to this plan, in poor physical condition. It is rated 73 per cent in what is described as a Facility Condition Index (FCI). This means that the cost to repair the building is estimated to be equal to about 73 per cent of the expense of constructing a new building. According to the board anything over 65 per cent is considered “prohibitive to repair”.
The questions that follow are: What assumptions underpin this rating? Where does the historical significance of the building fit into this index? If history doesn’t matter in determining the value of our elementary schools, what hope do we have that it will matter to our kids?
What about the direct support the school receives from individuals, businesses and organizations in this community? Who decides 65 per cent as the threshold, beyond which investment in this proud and noble structure is not worthwhile?
Frankly, it devalues the exercise to apply arbitrary thresholds to a single measure. In other words, the condition of the building is an important factor in weighing its future, but it is just one of many factors that must be considered. It is a mistake to draw a line under one data point and pull a set of conclusions from it.
It is a hazard common in bureaucracy—the need to boil decision-making down to a mathematical equation. Yet invariably, these models overlook the deeply interdependent relationship that exists between our public institutions and the volunteers, organizations and local community upon whom they rely. This contribution and interconnectedness is never tabulated in determining the worth of these places.
It is why such decisions must be made by the community—not by invisible index creators.
Another example: The plan projects enrolment numbers for each school until 2029. Again, a worthwhile exercise but hardly one that the board wants to pin school closures to. What are the assumptions underlying these forecasts? Looking forward is always a treacherous business.
In 2003, the municipality made expensive plans in preparation for a surge in the County’s population, forecasted then to reach 36,000 souls by 2012. Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, the County’s population shrank slightly in subsequent years. There are clearly limits to our ability to predict the future.
According to the Long-Term Capital and Accommodation Plan, the numbers for CML Snider show a modest increase in enrolment of about 50 students by 2029. Yet three large developers have subdivisions ready to go that could add more than 700 new homes to this village over a 10- to 15-year timeframe.
While these developers appear to be in no rush to build out their subdivisions, it seems a mistake to assume they never will.
The Long-Term Capital and Accommodation Plan should be the starting point for a conversation about the future of our schools. It provides an immense amount of important information and analysis that should feed this community debate. It also raises many, many far-reaching questions—questions that need to be answered before the plan is approved.
The authors of this plan have made it clear they view these scenarios as the basis for future school closures. They assure us that, when the time comes they will consult with the community—but only in the context of this plan.
A plan that only saw the light of day for 13 days before it was to be approved.
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