New Sudbury parents have their say about proposed school mergers

The Rainbow District School Board was under fire from parents again last night, this time as their accommodation review process addressed the New Sudbury planningarea.

Under one proposed plan, the board would close Adamsdale and Cyril Varney public schools, and send students to Churchill Public School for September 2019.

If the plan goes ahead, then grade 7 and 8 students from Churchill Public would be pushed to Lasalle Secondary School for the fall of 2017.

The audience was smaller than last week's gatherings in Lively and Chelmsford, but one parent whose childattends Cyril Varney, hammered back with her own statistics, saying the increased numbers would ultimately affect learning.

"According to the research that I've looked at which is granted mostly international -the optimal size is up to 300 students," said Laura Killam.

"They suggest -there's a literature review done recently and they suggest that that is the top. Definitely not as high as 550 and beyond," Killam added.

Board doesn't set target sizes for every school

The Rainbow Board's own accommodation review states that "research conducted at the primary level concluded that the optimal enrolment in an effective school would be 300 students."

Superintendent Bruce Bourget said that the board is mindful of the research, but other considerations also figure into their recommendations.

"We don't necessarily set a target size for every school," Bourget said, "we first have to look at the buildings we have. Some buildings are built to hold a certain number of students."

According to the Rainbow Board's website,Cyril Varney currently has 256 students from indergarten to grade 6. Adamsdale has an enrolment of 163, from kindergarten to grade 6.

MacLeod School, built in 2014 after the closures of Wanup and Long Lake public schools, houses 558 kindergarten to grade 8 students.

R.L. Beattie has 527, from kindergarten to grade 6.

Tammy Duncan, whose sonattendsAdamsdale Public School, accused the board of only looking at the financial bottom line.

"Saving here to cut cost there, to hopefully save a surplus here, but nowhere in that and in my research-have I been able to find how it will positively impact the students and the families within our area of Adamsdale," Duncan said.

Norm Blaseg, the board's director of education,admitted the financial portion has been driving this whole process.

"Sometimes when youreflect on these things you say 'okay, what is the ministry thinking when they put these types of strategies forward?'And you have to feel for parents because the reality is we're not dealing in widgets, we're dealing with their children," Blaseg said.

Final decisions on the accommodation will be made at the board meeting in early2017.

The next accommodation meeting is Thursday night at Confederation Secondary School in Val Caron.