School board staff recommend closing 15 schools

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has released its long-awaited list of schools it recommends be considered for closing.

At a public meeting Monday night, staff handed board supervisor Kyle Murray a 700-page report that contains recommendations to close 14 elementary schools and one secondary school.

Staff also recommend opening seven new schools.

• Carson Grove
• Christie
• Devonshire Community
• Emily Carr
• Fitzroy Harbour
• General Vanier
• Glen Cairn
• Lakeview
• Merivale
• Riverview (Cumberland getting new school by 2005)
• J.H. Putman (effective 2004, to receive new JK-8 alternative program)
• Grant Alternative School (effective 2004, with students redirected to Putman site)
• Stittsville (September 2005, Stittsville gets new school)
• Jockvale (to reopen as annex to John McCrae Secondary school)

The one secondary school recommended for closure is Laurentian.

Mark Croisier is one of the parents who showed up to get a look at the report, which has been almost a year in the making.

He says he's shocked by what he sees.

Croisier has two children who go to Glen Cairn Public School in Kanata. It's one of the 15 in the report slated for closure.

"It just makes absolutely no sense to go closing a school in Ottawa's high-growth area, especially when all the schools around us are already busting at the seams with kids in portables," Croisier says.

He says he'll try to convince the board supervisor to redirect students from overpopulated schools to Glen Cairn, to keep it open.

He hopes, if the Liberals win next week's provincial election, that fight will not be unnecessary.

Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty has called the Tory's education funding formula badly flawed, and has promised to remove provincially appointed board supervisors such as Kyle Murray.

Murray concedes that he may not be around to see the school-closure process through.

But he hopes, if he isn't, trustees stay the course.

"To simply come in and say we're not going to do it at all, we're going to end it, puts all those communities where new buildings are planned, and all those places where renovations are planned ... that would all be lost and I think that would be a real crime," Murray says.

If Murray is allowed to stay on as supervisor, he will make his final decisions on what schools should close in November.

The full list of school closures can be found on the board's Web site at http://www.ocdsb.edu.on.ca