By Susan White
School closures planned for Centretown and downtown contradict the city’s plan for revitalizing the core, says Somerset city councillor Elisabeth Arnold. She says school closures would force parents to choose between busing their children to other schools, putting them in private or Catholic school systems, or moving out of the community altogether.
For years the city has been trying to improve the core by encouraging families to move into the area. Arnold says school closures will have the opposite effect. “All our efforts to bring people back into the downtown will be completely negated.”
Barbara Joe is considering moving out of the neighbourhood if Elgin Street Public School, where her three children are enrolled, closes. Elgin is one of nine schools recommended for closure next year by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
The board has proposed that English-language students currently attending Elgin be bused to York Street Public School, 2.5 kilometres from Elgin. French immersion students will be transfered to Centennial Public School.Once the children from Elgin join these schools, York and Centennial would be filled to capacity.
Regional Chair Bob Chiarelli and city council both say the school board is basing its recommendations on outdated population data.
They have asked the board to delay its final decision on closures until after the region completes a new demographic study next January.
Maggie Melenhorst, manager of communications for the school board, says the board is using regional council’s own plan, which estimates population figures until 2006. She says there is an urgent need for schools in suburban areas.
“We cannot reasonably and responsibly not plan for the entire district. We cannot plan just for the downtown core.”
Earlier this week, several hundred concerned parents, teachers, and citizens piled into double decker buses to attend a rally at the school board office on Greenbank Roadd.
The lawn outside the building was crowded with yellow signs with SOS above the name of each school marked for closure. Posters of all kinds bobbed up and down in time with a musical group from Grant Alternative Public School who sang, “Don’t let them tear our little old school house down” while the crowd clapped along.
Inside, each school gave a 10-minute presentation to the board. Ying Hum, who has two children attending Elgin Street Public School, was one presenter. He emphasized one of Elgin’s main arguments that the school is essential to maintaining a vital downtown community.