School board trustees will start the process of deciding which, if any, schools they want to close in Burlington. Closing none at this point is the best option for everyone.

highschoolsBy Pepper Parr

June 7th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

They will convene at 7:00 pm this evening and begin the debate on what they as trustees think is best for the citizens of Burlington.

The 11 Halton District School Board trustees have been working through a process that began last October.

They decided then that they should create a Program Accommodation committee to consider the recommendation from the Director of Education that some of the Burlington high schools be closed. Which schools was the issue.

Each high school in Burlington nominated a parent to serve on the Program Accommodation Review Committee and the Board selected one person from a list of people who expressed an interest in serving on that committee.

The PARC met on seven occasion to review the 19 possible options Board staff had prepared. The Director of Education felt that the best option was to close Central high school of the Lester B. Pearson high school.

The PARC was not able to arrive at a consensus but they did narrow down the 30+ options they had in front of them down to five.

One was to close Central and Pearson; another to close Bateman and Pearson, another to not close any schools.

For reasons that will take some time to determine, the PARC members chose to fight with each other to ensure their school was not closed rather than work as a collective and ask the Board to provide more information.

The information given to the PARC members kept changing – enrollment numbers were suspect from the beginning and the source of some of the information was never all that clear.

For the most part every school was well represented at the PARC level. The PARC members were not served very well by Board staff or by the firm brought in to do research and facilitation.

The public that took part in the process grumbled throughout. The Central high school parents were able to organize very effectively from the moment the initial recommendation was on the table.

The second recommendation took Central off the table and replaced it with Bateman high school who then had to scramble to get their story out.

Parents were livid when they learned that the views of the classroom teachers would not be available and that any response from the high school students was going to be very limited.

With the PARC disbanded – it was time for public delegations. There were 51 of those – which Bateman used very effectively to get their story out.

The delegations were followed by an ”information” meeting during which the trustees had ample opportunity to ask questions – there were few questions that could be seen as digging very deeply.

The interesting part was that it took two meetings to get through all the question asking. Of note – there was just the one trustee who came forward with alternatives.

That is all water under the bridge. Even though there has been some last m8inute data that is very relevant – it will be up to the trustees to put forward motions, debate them, revise them and then vote on them.
Will we know Thursday morning what is going to be done? We will know something.

Will the trustees take up the motion that trustee Collard is certainly going to put forward which is to merge Bateman and Nelson. Should that happen – and it isn’t a bad idea – what would the new two campus school be named? Is the Nelson community ready to give up their name? Don’t bet on that one.

Will the parents accept whatever decision is made or will they seek a Ministerial Review?

Given the serious problems with much of the data and the pace at which the community was forced to march to the beat of a drum beaten by Board staff, the best solution the Gazette arrives at it to not close any schools and to create a task force made up of parents for the most part who would put together a solution that meets the needs of every student current and future in the city.

Steve Smith and Tom Muir served the city very well with their consistent contributions to the process. Armstrong said “it’s amazing how many ideas are coming at the last minute …this process is flawed if for no other reason than there isn’t time to build a cohesive plan”

The Board of trustees have more than enough information to agree with that assessment – they should vote for option # 7 – don’t close any of the schools – and defer a decision for at least two years until there is better data available.

In the immediate future the trustees should direct Board staff to give Pearson high school the feeder schools they used to have and lessen the capacity overload at Hayden.

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2 comments to School board trustees will start the process of deciding which, if any, schools they want to close in Burlington. Closing none at this point is the best option for everyone.

  • George

    Thank you Pepper for your article and review of this traumatic process foisted upon the Public High School Supporters of Burlington by the Wynne government and those too frightened to stand up to support “What’s best for Burlington and Halton Students”.

  • Hans

    Basing a decision at this time on a process so seriously tainted and flawed as this was would be foolish at best.