Media

News releases and articles

Below, School Closure Policy Research has collected a series of news releases and articles that we believe offers a comprehensive and diverse perspective of the school closure issue. This includes drawing upon experiences from within Ontario, across Canada, and in the United States. In doing so, these articles capture the ethos of school closures, the reactions they generate, and the resulting outcomes from this process.

Ontario Greens want Catholic, public school boards merged

• Region: Ontario
• Article: Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner says his party would save the province more than a $1 billion a year by merging the province’s public and Catholic school boards into one single system.
• Publication and date: CBC, May 13, 2014

KC students, parents upset by news

• Region: Kingston, Ontario
• Article: Students at Kingston Collegiate and Module Vanier were sad to hear the schools were going to be shut down. Proximity and friendships were the main reasons students were hoping to continue their schooling at one of Ontario’s oldest institutions.
• Publication and date: The Kingston Whig Standard, March 24, 2014

New hope for old school

• Region: London, Ontario
• Article: There could be light at the end of the tunnel for an elementary school that London’s Old East community has fought so hard to save. Alternative uses, like the ones proposed for Lorne Avenue, may be a viable response to keeping local schools open.
• Publication and date: The London Free Press, March 21, 2014

Parents frustrated with school closure process

• Region: Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
• Article: About 70 people came to Dartmouth High on January 22 to share some of their thoughts, ideas, and frustrations with the school review process in Nova Scotia — in other words, how it gets decided when it’s time for a school to close its doors for good. The meeting at Dartmouth High is part of a multi-week, province-wide public consultation process to see how the status quo can be improved or changed.
• Publication and date: The Chronicle Herald, January 23, 2014

Councillors ask province to freeze school closures

• Region: Hamilton, Ontario
• Article: Councillors are calling for a freeze on school closures in advance of a “staggering” wave of recommended public elementary shutdowns, particularly in east Hamilton.
• Publication and date: The Hamilton Spectator, March 20, 2014

Study suggests public has no real say in school closures

• Region: Kingston, Ontario
• Article: A recent paper by two Ontario professors suggests that community members and municipalities have no real power in school closure decisions and that some decisions are even predetermined despite calls for public input.
• Publication: The Kingston Whig Standard, July 10, 2012

School closures: Spectre of 'education desert' in lower city

• Region: Hamilton, Ontario
• Article: A 10-kilometre stretch of Hamilton’s inner city. One public high school.That’s the option in front of Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board trustees Wednesday in the first of three meetings to decide the fate of 15 local secondary schools.
• Publication and date: The Hamilton Spectator, May 9, 2012

Schools: Preservation is 'the Kingston way'

• Region: Kingston, Ontario
• Article: An interesting comparison between to historic schools in Kingston with equal importance but potentially very different futures. What are the opportunities for preservation of KCVI?
• Publication and date: The Kingston Whig Standard, May 15, 2013

Enrolment up after St. Marks school narrowly avoids closure

• Region: Edmonton, Alberta
• Article: St. Mark Junior High school, which narrowly survived a closure vote last year, has seen a surge of new students with a nearly 30 per cent increase in enrolment.
• Publication and date: CBC Edmonton, February 26, 2014

Fix the process for closing schools

• Region: Texas, U.S.A.
• Article: A local call to action from Houston, Texas for the board to reform the school closure process and develop a set of comprehensive policies to reflect a transparent community process from the very beginning. This article represents an excellent example of how the issue of school closures is not particular to Ontario, but remains a highly contentious issue around North America and Europe.
• Publication and date: Houston Chronicle, March 10, 2014

Conferences

Proceedings - Impact of school closures on children and communities

• Organization: Social Planning Toronto
• Conference debrief: Social Planning Toronto hosted a lively discussion back in September on the issue of public use of schools, community hubs and school board processes in school closure situations. The audience included not only students and community members, but also a number of senior politicians and school trustees. In this debrief you will find the proceedings notes compiled by Navjeet Sidhu as well as links to the presentation materials of the speakers.

Infographics

Alternative to school closures

• Publication: Alternative to School Closures
• Author: National Opportunity to Learn Campaign
• Article: What are some of the alternatives to permanent school closures? Who are the stakeholders? The National Opportunity to Learn Campaign has produced an infographic highlighting some of the key strategies used to address this issue and examples of alternatives to permanent school closures from around the United States.