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Better Farming
February 2017
RURAL
SCHOOL
CLOSURES
process against future uses for existing buildings.
“I think the motivation is: (the provincial government is) halfway through
(its) mandate, there’s an election in two years and ... they want to say they put
all this spending into education and ‘Look at all the new schools we’ve built.’”
Shawn McRae and his wife, Tara, cash crop about 500 acres near the hamlet
of Bainsville, 40 kilometres from Cornwall. He represents parents in the
accommodation review begun by the Upper Canada District School Board.
They are considering a proposal to close S.J. McLeod Elementary School where
McRae’s two youngest children are students. The school was built in the 1960s
on land donated by his great-uncle; McRae’s mother once taught at the school,
and he and his sisters attended elementary school there.
His two eldest boys now attend Char-Lan High School in Williamstown.
The school takes its name from former municipalities of Charlottenburg and
Lancaster townships. Under the current review, both schools could close,
McRae said. He remains cynical about current consultations.
“I think what frustrates a lot of people (is) ... we used to ... make more local
decisions,” McRae said. “Both at the local government level as well as the
school system, the dollars stayed in the community and things were arguably
run efficiently because of that local nature.”
People for Education, a Toronto-based charity that conducts and commis-
sions education research, expects to complete a detailed study of the current
round of accommodation reviews this spring, executive director Annie Kidder
said in an interview. The organization’s 2016 annual report in May document-
ed that students living in small towns and rural and northern communities are
“less likely to have music or health and physical education teachers,” among
other services. (For futher information, see the infographic on page 4.)
Kidder acknowledged a recent “surge in school closing notices.” Provincial
policy changes within the past four years curtail funding that once allowed
regional boards to maintain schools below design capacity, she said.
“There was funding for declining enrolment to help boards ... deal with
their declining enrolment,” Kidder said. “That funding is slowly being cut
because the province had wanted boards to – the polite word is – ‘consolidate’
schools to deal with the fact” of declining enrolment.
“There are schools that will close and probably should close,” she said.
“What we’re concerned about is we seem not to be able to take account of the
exacerbation of the policy as it’s working right now in terms of the impact on
small towns, rural Ontario and northern Ontario.”
BF
Shawn McRae farms near Bainsville and is a parent representative on
a school accommodation review underway in the Upper Canada
District School Board. Here, Shawn poses with his family. On steps:
Shawn and Tara’s sons Duncan and Malcolm. Left to right: Shawn and
son Alastair, Tara, Ron (Shawn’s father) and Carolyn (Shawn’s mother).
McRae photo