By Alison Larabie
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is lobbying the provincial government to adopt a 90 per cent funding formula for classroom space.
The Ontario government’s funding formula currently requires all schools in a board to be operating at 100 per cent capacity before new schools can be built in the district.
The motion to lobby the province was presented by the Ottawa-Carleton Assembly of School Councils (OCASC) at a school board meeting this week. Only the first part of the motion, which commits the board to lobbying the government, was approved.
The second part of the motion, which asked the board to implement phase two closures based on the 90 per cent usage instead of the 100 per cent usage, wasn’t approved. Instead, the board decided it will base its school closure recommendations on 90 per cent classroom space usage at public meetings next month.
“I think the motion has clearly directed staff to bring forward school closure options at 90 per cent,” says Lynn Graham, vice-chair of the board.
This decision comes several months after five schools in the board, including McNabb Park Public School, were closed under the 100 per cent usage rule.
For phase two, the board has been divided into four quadrants. Currently, the board is only examining quadrant C. Centretown falls into quadrant A, which will be examined some time next year.
Meanwhile, a report released by the board this week says McNabb Park is not one of the properties that has been put up for sale to other school boards in the area.
McNabb will be kept in the file of school properties for the next two years, says Albert Chambers, chair of the board.
“The site will remain in our portfolio until we have finished the elementary review and had a look at the needs of quadrants A and B,” Chambers says.
“It will probably be used as it is being used now,” he adds, referring to the alternate education program which currently occupies the site.
Chambers says that by the time the first round of recommendations and closures for quadrant C is completed, there should be a clearer idea of what will happen in Centretown and other parts of the district.
“We have to look at it from the perspective of what facilities do we want to keep and what programs do we want to put in place to attract families to live here,” says Chambers.
The board indicated that recommendations which come out of the Quadrant C study should be in the 90 per cent range – which could indicate that the board is moving towards a less stringent formula.
“Maybe they were finding the 100 per cent was unworkable,” says Paul Chislett, the board’s communications coordinator of the decision to support OCASC’s motion.
The consultation process for the next round of school closures begins next month and will culminate in a special board meeting on Dec. 21.