Better Farming February 2017

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RURAL SCHOOLCLOSURES
But the issue isn’t only about
agriculture. A growing segment of
people from high-cost urban areas of
Ontario has lately begun to identify
lower-cost housing and emerging
work opportunities in rural areas,
Jilesen said.
The farmer-owned Gay Lea Foods
Co-operative, for example, an-
nounced in November a $60 million
doubling of existing 80-employee
facilities at the Teeswater plant in
southern Bruce, part of the company’s
$140 million investment in new milk
processing. Feihe International Inc.,
the China-based infant formula
producer, announced the opening in
early December of a 200-job process-
ing plant in Kingston to make
goat-milk infant formula.
In the central Grey County village
of Markdale (pop. 1,325), Chapman’s
Ice Cream, Canada’s largest indepen-
dent ice cream manufacturer, predicts
imminent expansion of its existing
600-person workforce. Vice-president
Ashley Chapman, whose parents
David and Penny established the firm
in 1973, has joined the debate over
school closings with an offer of
corporate financial aid to preserve a
school in Markdale for current and
future employees’ children.
Bruce County council has ap-
proved a $20,000 study to examine
the ins and outs of demographic
projections used by the Bluewater
District School Board as part of its
continuing accommodation review.
In late November, a joint meeting of
Grey and Bruce County councils
resolved to seek from provincial
officials improved consideration of
the community impact of local school
closings.
One municipal councillor in the
southern Bruce community of
Brockton researched birthrates and
found an increase in local childbirths
by as much as 46 per cent and 27 per
cent at two area hospitals beyond the
census data used in school board
analysis.
Susan MacKenzie, the OAASC’s
founder, became involved when
Lambton-Kent school board officials
first proposed closing Sarnia Colle-
giate Institute & Technical School
(SCITS) where her son is a graduate.
Built in 1922, SCITS is to close after
the completion of $16 million in
renovations at St. Clair Secondary
School, which will accommodate
SCITS students in the city’s south
end. As a result, the board is turning
its back on a building that features a
750-seat auditorium and swimming
pool, MacKenzie said.
A long-time school council
member, MacKenzie has weathered
four pupil accommodation reviews.
After she heard about the board’s
decision to close SCITS, she said in
an interview, “Just looking at the
building ... you know that it’s the
wrong decision.
“The building is in great shape. I
started looking through the reports
and got into the facility condition
index information; to me it’s scandal-
ous,” MacKenzie said. The index
measures needed improvements. But
related funding for new construction,
MacKenzie maintains, skews the