How a community pulled together to save Lakeside Academy

When the Lester B. Pearson School Board decided last night to keep Lakeside Academy open, that outcome represented the culmination of months of hard work by a tight-knit community of parents which fought to keep the Lachine high school open.

The victory could hold clues for other parents and students determined not to lose their schools in the face of declining enrolment within the English-language school system.

What we showed is more than just about the number of studentsthereduring the day.- Karen Bleakly, chair of Lakeside Academy governing board

The vote reversed an earlier board decision to close the school last June.

"Obviously, initially people were very upset, but that turned pretty quickly to determination to figure outwhat we could do to keep the school open in the long term," Karen Bleakly, who chairs the school's governing board, told CBC Montreal's Daybreak.

• Lakeside Academy,Riverviewto stay open

The school board took another look at itsdecision in January, agreeing to delay the closure andgivingparents more time to come up a plan to save the school.

Beyond the classroom

In the period since, the school's governing board took steps to encouragemore students to enroll in the school and to find ways to make the building itself available to others in the community.

"The initial decision was largely about numbers," said Bleakly, whose son just completed Grade 8 at the school.

"What we showed is more than just about the number of students there during the day. We showed that the building is integral to the community."

In particular, they had the school designated as a"community learning centre," a provincial government designation that "makes it easier to bring community groups into the building and get more bodies into the building," Bleaklysaid.

They also improved the curriculum, by adding the options ofa robotics concentration, a coding concentration and a basketball concentration.

Bleakly believes those moves were integral to persuadingthe board to keep the school open.

"What they showed is we were very serious that we weren't just hoping or wishing, but that we were actually going and reachingout to partners in the community and trying to secure their co-operation," she said.

Thinking 'way outside the box'

Enrolmentfor Grade 7 this fallis already up, compared to last year.

School board chairwomanSuanneStein Day praised supporters of Lakeside Academy for thinking "way outside the box."

She said the proposals and efforts by parents, teachers and the surrounding community convinced commissioners to keep the school open.

"The community came together and really marketed the school in their community and showed the community all the good things that were already happening there," she said.