Closing existing schools and building new ones wrong, reader says

SooToday.com has received the following letter from a concerned reader who wrote to us earlier about school closures.

"Thanks for continuing to be the social conscience for our community and bringing awareness to the citizens on the issues that matter most," he writes. "The attached letter [below] is a response to my previous June 21 letter, as stated herein. I tried to reduce it’s length as much as possible, but as you can see, it’s all factual and important. This information has to get to the general public, as many were not part of this process or decision."

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Back to School…Closures!

Now that children have settled back into school, it’s only appropriate that the parents and citizens of our community also get educated along with them.

Close those five central elementary (St. Ann’s, St. Pius, St. Bernadette, St. Theresa,and St. John) and three secondary schools (St. Mary’s, St. Basil, and Holy Angels). 

Those schools are old and obsolete. 

They cost too much to operate. 

We have a dwindling population and declining enrollment. 

No one walks to school anymore. 

Who wants split classes? 

Why have one teacher teach all subjects when you can have specialized teachers that can teach? 

What a waste of our taxes keeping these schools open.

The above summarizes the gist of those that responded negatively to my June 21, 2012, letter "Another School Bites the Dust" and are most likely connected to the school board. 

Now allow me to reiterate to the general public what was presented several times by myself and other concerned parents to the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board ARC committees, school board officials and trustees throughout the ARC processes, so that the public is well read about the arguments presented.

And for the record, it’s never too late to change the province’s direction with social media, especially if it saves tax money along with our community! 

The shovel hasn’t been placed in the ground yet for the new Catholic high school, nor has the school even been tendered or designed yet. 

If the province has a conscience, there’s still time to save our tax money and future.

Old and obsolete

The school board’s definition of ‘Prohibitive to Repair’ is simply an oxymoron for ‘Failure to Maintain.’ 

No school is prohibitive to repair. 

If you take that approach, we should be rebuilding the Vatican, the Basilica of Notre Dame, the parliament buildings, and every building over 50 years-old. 

We can maintain these schools for a fraction of costs compared to building new. 

Just look at the Delta (formerly Holiday Inn), Holiday Inn Express (formerly Days Inn) and Comfort Suites (formerly Ramada Inn). 

Sadly, politicians don’t get credit for maintaining buildings…only new ones.

Dwindling Population?

In 2010, 1,471 children were enrolled within Holy Angels, St. Mary’s and St. Basils. 

The proposed school capacity will be 1,450! 

In 2010, 756 children were enrolled within St. Ann’s, St. Pius, St. Bernadette, and St. Theresa. 

The proposed new elementary consolidated school will be 650! 

The new schools can’t even accommodate the existing students! 

This is like trading in the family van for a new fancy Corvette when the kids are still at home! 

Whoever thinks the Sault is going to be a ghost town doesn’t understand the neighbourhood cycles, understand how attractive the Sault is to immigrants, or see new homes and subdivisions being built all over town. 

We will need additional capacity in our schools within 10 to 15 years, and this doesn’t include if the closed schools get rezoned to residential.

Maintenance costs

Costs of operating the new school versus maintaining the old are comparable and negligible. 

Look at the board’s operational expenses for yourself. 

Now is it really worth reducing our secondary student capacity by 20 percent and elementary student capacity by almost 50 percent to achieve an assumed negligible savings?

Transportation

Closer schools means less travel time, more play/study time, less costs for parents and less busing for our children. 

Both the proposed secondary and revamped elementary consolidated schools will be inaccessible for students! 

When approximately 20 percent of the children currently walk to their nearby schools, won’t consolidation cost taxpayers more transportation in the future? 

Now factor this in with the rising cost of gas.

Location or competition

If Sir James Dunn was closed because it was within one kilometer of White Pines, isn’t it funny/weird that the proposed new Catholic high school will be built within one kilometer of the Superior Heights Public Highschool? 

Talk about double standards! 

Does the province that funds two school boards also encourage competition between them?

Property values

Citizens have purchased their homes with the intent of having access to nearby schools. 

Their property values will invariably drop due to their closure. 

Don’t they have any say with consolidation?

Traffic patterns

It took over 50 years for citizens to get adapted to the existing traffic patterns. 

Building new consolidated schools will increase traffic congestion, buses, stress, and gas consumption. 

Isn’t the corner of Second Line and Great Northern Road busy enough without adding another new high school nearby!?

Student participation

With a reduction in secondary and elementary schools, so goes the opportunity of more children competing in sports, student council, or theatre. 

It only stands that the elite will be the only ones to play, while other children that wanted to play resort to either intramurals or turning to the streets for drugs and stealing.

Local jobs

Maintaining our buildings creates more long-term stable maintenance employment and keeps more money in our community than building a new school, which creates short-term employment, imports labour due to deadlines, and requires greater foreign building products.

Student health

Exercise is a part of growing up and knowing your neighbourhood. 

Waiting, standing, and sitting on a crowded bus for over an hour daily is dead time for these children and increases bullying. 

Having a nearby school allows children the opportunity of walking/biking to school.  Who heard of attention deficit disorders growing up?

Spilt classes

Split classes (or school closures) aren’t really necessary. 

When the ministry subsidizes $11,500 per student (approx.), isn’t it hard to digest that a school board can’t operate a school with an enrollment of approximately 150 children for $1.7 million! 

Who exactly is getting the money…the Sunshine Club? 

Maybe we should seriously look at eliminating the bureaucracy now that we have standardized testing and invest the money in the teachers and educational assistants.

Teaching

Teachers with smaller classes have time to teach their children and get involved in sports and other curriculum. 

With consolidation, teachers will have larger classes and less time to spend with children. 

Combine this with the fact that jobs will be lost/combined, do you really want a stressed teacher teaching your child?

Special needs

If you had a child who was disadvantaged or impaired, you think it’s easier to commute in a small school or a large consolidated one? 

Talk to any parent of a disadvantaged child for yourself!

Specialized teachers

Having one general teacher teaching a child during the elementary years is by far a better teaching model than having several specialized teachers. 

A parent needs to monitor the growth of their child and work with one teacher. 

Parents at consolidated schools will have to deal with several teachers.

Health and safety

Smaller schools are safer from a health and safety perspective. 

Smaller schools provide greater control over allergies and the spread of epidemics, flus, and viruses, not to mention gun and bomb alerts. 

Look at how many cameras are in the existing schools versus the new consolidated schools! 

Are they teaching at these schools or filming a movie?

Sustainability

The Pod Challenge – Imagining Sustainable Urbanism in Northern Climates held one year ago came to the conclusion that critical for the sustainable growth and revitalization of the downtown core is a sense of community, schools, and children, for which no one from the school board attended. 

Many downtown businesses survive on students for business. 

St. Mary’s students who are Soo Greyhounds can walk down the street to hockey practice after school. 

Removing St. Mary’s from the downtown core will essentially turn the downtown into a ghetto, no thanks to our school board.

Solid engineering

Buildings built prior to 1960 were built solid with concrete, brick, terrazzo, steel, and plaster, and have withstood the test of time. 

With a some maintenance and renovations, these buildings can last for hundreds of more years. 

Buildings built today with drywall, siding, and plastics will not last nearly as long and will cost more in maintenance. 

Both Bawating and St. Mary’s were built to survive a World War III. 

Superior Heights on the other hand?

Historical significance

When other countries seek to retain their sense of identity, culture, community, and history restoring buildings, we tend to demolish and rebuild new like we’re suffering a mid-life crisis. 

What a shame!

Neighbourhood use/connection

These schools have been used in the evenings by community groups (i.e., sports) including voting. 

Will eliminating these encourage community or voting when they make decisions like this?

Environmental damage/footprint

Renovating an existing building is Reuse. 

It doesn’t require a fifth of new/raw materials compared to building new and requires less effort. 

Demolition debris inevitably goes to our limited landfill and speeds up the filling, thereby raising our tipping fees. 

Now if the Province really support the 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, then why are they supporting building new?

Studies and studies

School size matters. 

A review of educational studies commissioned for the College Park Elementary School Community in 2007 clearly shows that there is a growing consensus that small schools not only have an academic achievement advantage but also: promote character development, emotional stability among their students, higher attendance, lower dropout rates, safer schools, collegial working environments and higher levels of job satisfaction for teachers, as well as an increased public confidence and parent satisfaction with the schools their children attend. 

Most importantly, small schools improve educational outcomes. Students from small schools tend to complete more years of higher education and score higher on standardized tests.

Enough said. 

If some locals still think that I’m the only voice against consolidation, look again. 

Over 90 percent of the parents at St. Ann’s and 85 percent of the parents at St. Pius’s voted against consolidation, yet the HSCDSB got what they wanted to keep up with the public school board (aka Superior Heights and Francis H. Clergue)! 

The parents were so frustrated they just walked away because it wasted their time because it was like talking to a wall.

Many concerned parents and students across the entire province argued against school closures for the above reasons. 

Parents have taken their battle to their school boards, city councils, Ministry of Education, and politicians across the province to absolute no avail. 

Teachers refrained from speaking up against these closure decisions because it meant speaking up against their employer and risked their job. 

The provincial cards are completely stacked against the taxpayers they serve, their teachers, and their children when it comes to education. 

It’s really not promising when I hear complaints from both parents and students at the new consolidated schools within our community!

Concerned parents who participated with the ARC process came to realize it was ‘highly manipulative, confrontational, ineffective and divisive, to say nothing of highly wasteful of time and money.’ 

When the majority of decision makers were connected to the school board (i.e., ARC committee members and trustees), doesn’t it surprise you that not even one voted to stay the status quo? 

Where is the public trust throughout this whole process and where is the trust in trustee? 

Isn’t there a serious conflict of interest with everyone involved here? 

The only ones who gain from school consolidations are the school boards themselves. 

Less schools means less work for them at the expense of everyone else mentioned above.

In closing, conscientious employees of ourprovincial government that listen to their people have been known to have a change in heart over time, lest we should hold them along with their pensions accountable for the direction we’re heading. 

This decision is worth looking at one more time without the school board’s conflict of interest.

Unless someone at the provincial level takes a serious impartial review at this decision, then may I kindly suggest we take a public vote on this issue of school closures with the next provincial election and let democracy speak for itself. 

After all, this is a democratic country…isn’t it!?

- Robert Bressan, 1044 North Street

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