Central deserving of a fair process
The Barrie Examiner. Editorial, 25 September
At the very least, Barrie Central Collegiate students and their parents know the public school board’s intentions for their downtown high school.
Close it following the 2011- 2012 school year.
Shuffle its students to the city’s other four high schools, until a new one can be built in southeast Barrie.
Simcoe County District School Board planner Andrew Keuken told members of the accommodation review committee (ARC) this week that closing Central is what the board would do if it was forced to make a decision right now.It bears asking, then, why an ARC is necessary, why months of meetings and discussion need to take place if the starting point is that Central should close.
Shouldn’t the starting point be to determine if Central should close?
Shouldn’t the pros and cons of shuttering Barrie’s only downtown high school be debated?
Shouldn’t those who want to keep Central open be able to explain it to the school board, and to the ARC, without knowing it’s a done deal? And present the option of replacing Central with a new school on the same site?
To be fair, Keuken has said closing Central is not a done deal and that this is not set in stone. And at least he laid it out for ARC members, students, parents, etc.
Such frank talk would have been appreciated during the board’s process to close King Edward school in 2008 and its plans to mothball Prince of Wales School next year.
Issues at Central such as asbestos, accessibility and a failing infrastructure — the heating system — were identified a few years ago. And Central’s enrolment is expected to decline during the next decade.
But there are, or at least there should be, immediate questions about closing Central — purely from a common-sense perspective.
The school board, for example, wants to open its new city high school in 2015. There’s no money to build it, not a cent.
Second, the schools where Central students are to attend after 2011 and before 2015 — Eastview, North, Bear Creek and Innisdale — are already far past full. Innisdale, for example, is at 160% capacity, while Bear Creek is at 147%.
This is good news for portable classroom manufacturers, bad news for the Central students who will be shoe-horned into already bulging classrooms.
Closing Central is also bad news for Barrie city council, city planners and even private developers.
The provincial government has designated the city central core as a growth area. It’s supposed to be a complete community, where people can live, work and play. Shouldn’t that include schools?
When couples with children consider a neighbourhood in which to live, they look for schools close by.
So the public school board is not helping city council’s efforts to revitalize downtown Barrie. King Edward School, on the downtown’s fringe, is closed (Unity Christian High School is there now). Prince of Wales is closing and now Central looks like it will suffer the same fate.
None of this means Barrie Central supporters should give up the fight. The school has less than 1,000 students, which is 90% capacity, but that is still a significant number of voices. They have parents and friends. There are Central alumni.
All need to be heard, and they will know if it’s just lip service.
But they are certainly starting from a distinct disadvantage, knowing the board’s intentions.
