Make surplus schools resource centres, advocate says
November 9, 2009
THE CANADIAN PRESS
An education advocacy group says some of the 172 Ontario schools it says are threatened with closure should be turned into child and family resource centres.
Annie Kidder of People for Education says with a new funding model, those schools and the additional 163 under review can play a vital new role in communities.
Nervous parents are already beginning to organize against the possible closures of their neighbourhood schools.
The number of new students enrolling in Ontario's elementary schools has dropped by 15 per cent in since 1997-98 and by 14 per cent in secondary schools since 2002.
In Toronto, 35 schools may be on the chopping block.
Even the substantial number of immigrants choosing to call the province home isn't making up the shortfall caused by a declining birth rate.
thestar.com