By Pepper Parr
November 21, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
The Halton District School Board will be holding their public Question and Answer session Monday night on-line at 7 pm.
The protocol is set out on the Board’s web site. It isn’t easy to find – the Gazette will endeavour to get the exact url to log in.
HDSB Director of Education Stuart Miller made a presentation at every high school – some were very poorly attended. He is now holding an on-line Question and Answer session to answer questions.
The staff recommendation is to close both Central and Pearson high schools.– that is just a recommendation
The provincial government rules for closing a school require that the Board produce a report which they did.
They were not required to provide a recommendation, however they did.
The decision as to what is eventually done is made by the school board trustees.
Going forward the Board will take questions regarding this Program and Accommodation Review; send them via email to: BurlSSPAR@hdsb.ca.
The process to close a school is long and involved. Here are the steps that will be taken. Remember – it is the school board trustees that will make the final decision.
Formation and orientation of Program and Accommodation Review Committee (PARC)
December 1, 2016 –m This will be a closed meeting
Public Meeting #1
December 8, 2016
PARC Working Meeting #1
January 26, 2017
PARC Working Meeting #2
February 2, 2017
PARC Working Meeting #3
February 9, 2017
Public Meeting #2
March 2, 2017
PARC Working Meeting #4
March 23, 2017
Director’s Report to Committee of the Whole
March 29, 2017
Public Delegation Night
April 18, 2017
J.W. Singleton Education Centre
2050 Guelph Line
Presentation of Report to Board of Trustees for Decision
May 17, 2017
What many people do not realize is that every high school in Burlington anywhere near that 65 utilization number at risk. Hayden high school is not at risk – the place has only be operational for three years.
The parents at Central High School have been working diligently at doing everything they can to ensure their school is not closed.
The community based team is now leading the effort to Save Central. The group has a leadership and strategy team and a data team as well. They have a web site and a twitter account.
#centralstrong
https://centralstrong.ca
T-shirts and lawn signs are part of the campaign. Central has been down this road before. Their spokesperson said they have an excellent process and structure in place.
And they have a long list of questions they want to ask the Director of Education. Here are some of those questions:
At the meetings where the Director spoke he assured the public that expenses would not drive the decision it would be equitable opportunity for all students , can the board outline what goes into determination of equitable , is it course offerings, student success, or other things, what exactly is considered ?
What is the point in having a PAR Committee that can’t hear opinions from the relevant schools, doesn’t hear from the Trustees of the relevant schools and won’t allow the Committee to make recommendations at the end?
Why did you not consider alternate options prior to engaging in the PAR? There is nothing in the Report to indicate this was done, as required by the Ministry guidelines.
Why are teachers not allowed to talk about this or have opinions? This does a disservice to both them and their students who naturally want to talk to them about it
Why did the board spend nothing on maintaining older schools for years, and remove students from Pearson only to put them at Hayden which caused the overcrowding? It appears this was all done so that Pearson and Central could be targeted for closure
Why do you keep saying 1200 is an optimal number of students in a high school? This is only optimal based on dollars and cents. It is widely recognized in multiple studies that optimal numbers are actually in the 600-900 range. Where is your data to support this number?
The report does not state why Option 19 was recommended in comparison to other options and alternatives. Simply saying we think this is the best option at this time means nothing. Why was it the best option at the time?
Why in Option #4 would you say you could move the IB program from Pearson to Nelson which would then have Nelson’s utilization at 113%? Why would you not move it to Central or Pearson?
It should be an interesting hour and a half of community engagement.
The current population of Burlington is 174,000 and we are supposedly mandated to grow to 220,000 by 2020. Strange therefore that of the 46,000 new residents, none will be school age as according to the School Board stats this new influx will have a negative impact on utlization… whose kidding who!
The current situation gives the impression that the objective is to close two schools, period, and find a way to justify it.
The utilization data look highly unrealistic. Who provided them, and how were they calculated?
If the data are deemed reliable, it looks like some creativity would be helpful in avoiding school closures; e.g., re-draw the catchment boundaries to bring Hayden down to 90% (obviously no school should try to operate at 100% capacity and 129% is just ridiculous); close Burlington Central Elementary (mothball it for possible future re-opening or lease it to the City, which seems to need more office space) and move its operation into the BCHS building.
Closing BCHS or Pearson should be the very last options to be considered, after all else has failed.