By Pepper Parr
January 13th, 2016
BURLINGTON, ON
That December 8th meeting that was held by the Halton District school board has come to be an experience the Board has learned something from.
Trustees were telling staff that many people didn’t feel they had had a real opportunity to ask questions or voice their concerns.
Director of Education Stuart Miller getting ready to address parents at Central high school.
Director of Education Stuart Miller admitted that there was something to be learned from that first experience and has said that the Board’s administrative committee will review what has taken place so far and decide if there should be another public meeting at which people can voice their concerns and grievances.
Miller didn’t sound all that happy with the idea of a meeting at which he has to stand up in front of a couple of hundred unhappy people who get quite emotional about the possibility that there local school might be closed.
But he did say that if the view was that another public meeting was necessary then he would take part and listen.
Miller isn’t sure what the public expects. He refers again and again to the facts he has to deal with – 1800 empty seats – something that just isn’t sustainable on a long term basis.
He argues that the data provided by the Boards Planning department has been accurate in the past and he believes that what he is getting from them now is also accurate.
That might not really be the case.
The board was caught by surprise when it found registration at the Alton public school to be much higher than projected – then realized that a significant number of the houses in the relatively new community was housing two and sometimes three families.
These elementary school students will move on to the high school in the community which is already well over its intended capacity.
Miller told staff that his planners work closely with the city of Burlington and share information.
One of the problems is that the city can only pass along what it has in hand in the way of new residential projects. There is a project well past the drawing board stage for the intersection of Brant and Ghent streets that will involve three of the four corner properties at that intersection.
The properties within the black outline are part of a development that is well past the drawing board stage. The hold up is at city hall where the planners need more time to figure out how this will fit in with their mobility hub plans.
City hall has asked the developer to wait a little longer before talking about the development – which means that development is not real yet from the city’s point of view. The plan is for there to be a mobility hub at the Burlington GO station where a five tower project is currently under construction. The city to get its mobility hub thinking completed before looking at additional new projects.
The developers are way ahead of the city. They have measured the market, done their research and determined what the public wants and have put their money on the table and begun construction.
It is very real in the minds of the developer – several housing were recently demolished to clear the Brant Ghent site.
The board isn’t even aware of that development which is a couple of blocks from Central high school.
There also appears to be an assumption that there will be very few families living in the five condominiums that are going to be part of the Paradigm project on Fairview next to the GO station.
A five tower project currently under construction is less than a ten minute walk from Central high school.
To assume that a community of 2000 people is going to be made up of foot loose and fancy free singles or seniors that want to downsize may turn out to be a mistake equal to the problem that cropped up in the Alton village when the board got caught with close to hundreds of additional students.
The board of education needs to find a way to meet privately with the larger developers to get a sense of where they want to go long term. There is vital data that is being missed.
The sense one gets is that the Planning department isn’t all that sophisticated and appears to rely on the tried but not always true demographic tools when perhaps something that permits the planners to dig down a lot deeper is needed.
School boards know about the project – their signs warn parents that there may not be space in local schools for any children living in the project.
There is little argument that the role of the board is to educate our children – but the job doesn’t stop at that border – an education is vital – a community is the space within which the student is going to exist and make their mark in this world.
There is a lot more talking to be done and some parents at Central high school are not convinced that the board really wants to listen.
One parent sent in these comments: “I think the PAR process will be a sham. But the Ministry designed it so it would be. There are PAR committee members in Ontario quitting in disgust of the whole thing before it’s even over. I talked with our MPP Eleanor on my thoughts about all this from a provincial perspective a while ago. She actually said “there is nothing wrong with the funding formula” and “I have faith in the process.” Our meeting was over the phone so I couldn’t tell if she said it with a straight face or not, but really!
There are two public meetings scheduled as part of the PAR process – no word yet on the format of those meetings.
So 1800 empty seats is said to not be sustainable long term.
And the Board staff data is said to accurate now and and has been accurate in the past.
Go back to Board data for 2010 when there were 495 actual empty seats, and 92% space utilization, in the 6 then existing schools in Burlington.
Have plans to build another school in Alton – add 1200 seats plus about 280 in portables.
Build school, open in 2013, fill with about 1400 students by 2017 from schools within the 6 existing schools. These 1400 now become empty seats in the south Burlington six schools.
This adds up to about the 1800-1900 now cited as unsustainable
This is in the past and forecast data that is said to be accurate.
So it can be said with accuracy that the Board created the 1800 empty seats that they now say are not sustainable. Why and how?
Building Hayden in Alton can be said with accuracy to be a blundered construction of most of the 1800 empty seats.
So they now want to close two schools of the original 6 that housed all these students before Hayden within the comfortable 90% utilization.
So the Board itself created this so-called unsustainable 1800 empty seats, and they did it with accuracy.
They have also gotten away with this unexplained blunder with no accountability for what is incompetent planning in my opinion, based on the face of the so-called accurate data.
So how does this work that the Director isn’t sure now what the residents/public of the south Burlington 6 expect from him and the Board?
Well what I expect is that you offer innovative and management solutions to clean up the mess you have created.
And don’t tell us that your forecast data are accurate. It’s seems to be a new age for housing costs and form, so families will likely have to more and more occupy high density.
The historical pupil yield curves used may be too low in this new age. That’s what happened in the Alton community, and the Board data didn’t catch it.
Don’t make more mistakes and cost the community dearly by closing schools based on methods and attitudes that actually created the mess.
It is possible to use the toolbox to keep all the schools open. Go to that toolbox and show us how we can make the empty spaces of use.
Don’t make irreversible quick decisions that we will all have to live with in regret.
That’s what people expect, among other things, I think.
Do it.