By Jenny Weichenthal
St. Anthony elementary school will not only remain open but be changed to accommodate Grades 7 and 8.
An independent review panel recently examined a number of options for school closures suggested by the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board, one of which was to close St. Anthony. The panel has recommended the closure of St. Joseph’s Intermediate school, which is where students go for Grades 7 and 8 after leaving St. Anthony and seven other elementary schools.
Instead of going to St. Joseph’s the panel recommends the students stay in their home schools for Grades 7 and 8, which would mean developing programs for these grades.
June Flynn-Turner, school board chair, says she is not sure how this could ever happen.
“They can accommodate the numbers, but they can’t accommodate the programs,” she says. “They don’t have the specialized areas.”
The panel, whose recommendations will be considered by the board when they make their decision at the end of April, suggested St. Joseph’s and five other schools be closed by June 2001. The recommendations will eliminate 1,512 spaces, more than half of the board’s goal to cut 2,100 empty pupil spaces.
School board trustee Mary Curry says the board has to cut these spaces from the system in order to qualify for provincial funding to build new schools.
But she adds the panel’s recommendations that students stay in their home schools for two more grades would involve a huge programming change, which some schools may not be able to accommodate.
“I doubt very much that we will go down that path, but perhaps we may,” says Curry.
John Dorner, principal of St. Anthony’s school, says he is pleased the panel has considered the strong feelings the parents and community have about the school staying open.
Dorner adds St. Anthony, which is almost 100 years old, does have space to accommodate Grade 7 and 8.
But he says changes would have to be made, such as busing students to different schools for different classes, to continue to provide opportunities for the older students in specialized areas.
Josie Buckland, chair of the parent council at St. Joseph’s intermediate, says the council is very surprised by the recommendation to close the school.
“The independent review panel broadsided us in terms of what I think is procedural fairness,” she says.
Buckland adds the Grades 7 and 8 program is necessary for the students and closing St. Joseph’s isn’t feasible. She says most of the feeder schools don’t have the labs, design technology and chapels, to teach those grades.
“It doesn’t strike me as a community school environment if these kids are spending all their time on the bus,” says Buckland.
Flynn-Turner says it would be a disadvantage to students not to have an intermediate school and the suggestions to cut only 1,512 of the 2,100 empty spaces is not sufficient.
“It’s a problem,” says Flynn-Turner. “If we want to build the facilities required, then it clearly isn’t enough.
She says they will consider the panel’s report and the feelings of the school communities expressed at a board meeting last Wednesday in deciding which schools close.
In looking at St. Anthony, she says they’ll consider the value of the school to the community.