Review upholds closing 2 high schools

An independent report released Wednesday is supporting the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board's controversial decision to close Laurentian High School and J.S. Woodsworth Secondary School, although it found major flaws in the process.

The board targeted the two schools for closure primarily due to low enrollment, despite a provincial moratorium on school closures and notice that the province was coming out with new school closure guidelines.

A spokesperson for the school board argued it could not have followed guidelines for a decision made in December 2004 that the province did not release until February.

School trustee David Moen argues that, if the board had waited for the new procedure, it wouldn't have enough time to close the schools next year, enrollment would plummet, and the high schools would have ended up closing anyway the following year.

So when the board finalized the closures at the end of 2004, Ontario's Ministry of Education ordered an independent review.

Although the report found serious flaws in the process, it ruled the outcome would have been the same even if the new process had been followed.

Joan DeBardeleben disagrees.

"I think it's unlikely that both of the schools would have closed if a proper procedure had been set up," said the co-chair of the J.S. Woodsworth parent council.

"I think it's very important that the ministry assure that in future, as other schools go through this, that they don't repeat our experience."

Minister of Education Gerard Kennedy says the new guidelines will do just that.

His ministry accepts the report's findings, and yet he understands the disappointment that it doesn't change the outcome for parents and students.

"I think what the people of Ottawa can expect," said Kennedy, "is that there'll be a much clearer, much more emphatic involvement of the community in any future decisions that we at the ministry and the school board will be making about their local community schools."