Better Farming February 2017

Better Farming

February 2017

The Business of

Ontario Agriculture

RURAL

SCHOOL

CLOSURES

ington Collegiate and Voca-

tional Institute, the high

school that educated Sir John

A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime

minister, CBC hockey commentator

Don Cherry and members of the rock

band Tragically Hip, plans to close.

Another historic collegiate – Owen

Sound Collegiate and Vocational

Institute, most famous for the school-

ing of Billy Bishop, the First World

War flying ace, and Agnes Macphail,

the first woman elected to parliament

– closed last fall.

More school closures will follow.

The schools are casualties in a new

round of accommodation reviews and

multi-million dollar school system

adjustments mandated by Ontario’s

Education Ministry in the name of

improved course selection and

declining enrolments.

Community activists have begun

wondering, however, why the process

targets so many rural schools. These

activists have begun to question the

accuracy of the demographic projec-

tions used to calculate school board

strategies.

In some rural areas, proposed

school closings ignore likely areas of

imminent growth. In Bruce County,

for example, a pending $8 billion

refurbishment of the world’s largest

nuclear generating station is expected

to yield at least 3,000 direct new jobs

and increase the community’s

population.

For rural students, school closures

mean longer bus rides and barriers to

after-school activity and parental

involvement. For rural communities,

the consolidations pose a social and

economic threat that pits neighbours

against one another.

The closures also leave school

boards at the mercy of ministry

funding formulas that some say

favour costly new capital construction

over less costly options. That’s

particularly true where rural schools

provide a singular, community focus.

The newly-formed Ontario

Alliance Against School Closures

(OAASC) estimates that 500 rural

schools face major change, including

closure.

The alliance, which has been

rapidly growing since September,

produced a protest on Nov. 21 at

Queen’s Park. Activists from as far

north as Sudbury, as far southwest as

Sarnia on the Michigan border and as

far east as the Quebec border attend-

ed the event. As many as 200 protes-

tors gathered on the legislature steps

outside as opposition members inside

peppered Education Minister Mitzie

Hunter with questions and petitions.

Hunter and Premier Kathleen

Wynne defended current policy and

government plans for new school

spending. But protest momentum

continued to build through Decem-

ber. For rural Progressive Conserva-

tives such as Bill Walker, MPP for

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, it seems at

times like a political gift.

MPPs Walker, Steve Clark

(Leeds-Grenville), Monte McNaugh-

ton (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) as

well as Jim McDonell (Stor-

mont-Dundas-South Glengarry) have

hammered the rural schools theme

hard in the legislature.

Ontario Federation of Agriculture

board members are likewise taking

leadership in their communities on

an issue that concerns not only

farmers but also their non-farming,

rural neighbours.

Federation director Pat Jilesen and

his wife, Beth, raise sheep on a

200-acre farm about five minutes’

drive from the central Bruce County

village of Paisley, which has a popula-

tion of 1,003. Jilesen – along with

other parents, local municipal

representatives and business repre-

sentatives – has joined a pitched

battle to save the community’s only

remaining school.

Because of school boundary rules

that still puzzle Jilesen, his elder son,

Noah, began formal education at the

ripe old age of three and rode a bus

for more than an hour to Port Elgin

instead of Paisley, five minutes from

home. Seven years later, Noah, 10,

and Elsa, seven, still ride the bus to

Port Elgin.

“I can’t think of a better, renewable

economic development commitment

from the government than to keep the

schools open,” Jilesen said in an

interview over coffee at Back Eddie’s

restaurant in Paisley. He cited fre-

quent Wynne government commit-

ments to agriculture and to rural

development which profess “the

importance of keeping rural commu-

nities vibrant.”

MPP Bill Walker with Eric and Sarah Grant, students at Paisley Central

School, participated in the Nov. 21 protest at Queen’s Park over rural

school closings. This school has been identified, in the accommodation

review plan by the Bluewater District School Board, as likely to close.

Ana Sajfert photo