Forster high school to close in 2014

It was the decision people on Windsor's west side were dreading.

The Greater Essex District School Board trustees voted Monday night to close J. L. Forster secondary school at the end of the 2014 school year.

Forster students will start attending Century high school instead.

It's not a decision residents are happy with.

Several people from the Sandwich Towne area and students from Forster high school pleaded with the board to give the school a one-year reprieve and defer the decision to close the high school.

They want enough time to come up with a plan to either save it or build a larger school equipped to school kids kindergarten through Grade 12 on the west side of Huron Church Road.

One after the other, school supporters told the trustees taking Forster out of Sandwich Towne will devastate the neighbourhood and deter people from moving there.

Abdul Cisman, from the Somali Community of Windsor, is not impressed with the school board.

"I'm hearing all this community reaction. They choose to actually go against the wishes of this community. I think it is a sad day for Sandwich Towne. It is a sad day for Windsor West, and a sad day for all of us," he said.

Marc Taylor of the Windsor Black Coalition is also unhappy.

"We're closing down the high school. What's going to happen? People are going to move away. And if that happens, we're just going to have another school that's going to be boarded up, similar to most of the homes that's along near the bridge," he said. "It's about time that we take care and recognize our heritage buildings, our heritage sites."

Some delegations Monday said Forster students will just go to Catholic high school Assumption instead.

Trustee Shelley Harding-Davis spoke against the motion to close the school She believes the recent community improvement plan will turn the neighbourhood around and attract more families to bolster enrolment, which is running at less than half capacity.

In the end her motion to defer the decision was defeated and the motion to the close the school passed, 7-2.

The board said the move was made in order to save money. School funding is based on enrolment and Forster is half empty.

Some parents and others in the Sandwich Towne community are putting together a group to fight the decision and may even decide to occupy the school if necessary.

The board also decided to close Gordon McGregor elementary school in east Windsor.

Its students will move into Percy P. McCallum School, whose students will, in turn, shift to the Herman High School building.