Barrie Central Collegiate is next on the chopping block.

Schools matter to us in Barrie. If you rise to vote for anything in the next municipal election, please vote for our children and their schools. Our public school board has repeatedly presented downtown Barrie schools as buildings that can’t be fixed. That is so not the truth. King Edward closed and was re-opened by a Christian School high school with minimal money; our school board was awarded millions while the high school opened on thousands.

The kids who were in the district of King Edward received no extra funds in their schools despite the promises. Prince of Wales is closing at the end of this school year because it was presented as “prohibitive to repair” to the Ministry by our school board despite several external consultants who recognized that Prince of Wales needs minimal money for repairs and upgrades.

Nobody with expertise was consulted on this historic building and its contributions to a City. Now Barrie Central is on the chopping block. The school board has finally admitted its agenda with the recent Accommodation Review of Barrie Central. The mandate was clear on September 21. Our school board said clearly that they want to close down anything central and build into the suburbs. Anyone who has studied even a little bit of urban planning knows that this thinking is from the 1970s.

Build out. It’s rotten thinking, because if we don’t build in, we have a rotten core. I urge my community to study the core issues of urban planning and to vote to have vision for our city that includes education in our downtown.