By Marla Norrad
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s decision to close the Educational Media Centre on Feb. 1 has left resource materials scattered throughout Ottawa schools.
The centre was a library of resources from which teachers could borrow items such as novel sets, videos and science equipment. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board operated the centre while four school boards in the city contributed to it and used it. The district board recently decided to close the centre Feb. 1 and distribute the resources throughout the four boards.
Nancy MacLeod, a superintendent at The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, explains that the centre was inefficient and “not used to its full extent.”
“Schools were often faced with hoping to get something from the media centre and it being at another school,” which resulted in many schools buying their own resources, says MacLeod.
The board will save $90,000 in operational cost between Feb 1 and the end of this school year. Their annual savings will be around $190,000, says MacLeod. They haven’t yet decided what to do with the empty building, she says.
Joan Spice, school trustee for the Somerset and Kitchissippi wards, is concerned because many teachers already had their lesson plans made for next semester. Now she says they won’t be able to use the materials from the media centre.
“We’re very concerned about losing that resource,” she says. “A lot of teachers were caught off guard.”
Rob Campbell, chair of the Ottawa Carleton Assembly of School Councils, is worried about the impact this may have on individual school budgets. Now that schools have to acquire their own resources, he says, they may have to take money from other places.
The closure will also foster inequality throughout the board because each school has different fundraising abilities, he adds. Some schools will be able to buy more resources than others, he says.
According to MacLeod, the district board has “no definite plan” for schools that want to use the resources in the future. Currently, she says, each school board is dividing up the centre’s resources. It will be up to each board where the resources go but the district board is “still working on strategies.”
Both Immaculata High School and Lisgar Collegiate have refused to comment on the effects the closure will have.
Spice says she thinks there are ways to keep the centre open. “There are many ways of making it more efficient,” she says.
The trustees are working on keeping the service available to Ottawa schools.
“We’re going to approach the library to see if they will take on the service,” says Spice.
The Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board has decided to run its own media centre using its share of the materials, according to Deputy Director of Education James McCracken.
Immaculata High School will still receive most of the materials they were planning on getting from the media centre but there will still be things the Catholic board has to purchase, says McCracken.
The closure will not change much of the curriculum, he says. “These are supplementary materials. Teachers still use textbooks. We have our own materials that the schools buy.”