News

Ontario will see an unprecedented number of school closings unless the province updates its funding models to account for the ever-shrinking school-age population, a report by an education advocacy group has found.

There are 172 elementary and secondary schools across the province slated or recommended to close over the next three years and another 163 are under review, according to data compiled by People for Education.

There hasn't been such a serious threat to the province's classrooms since the late 1990s when budget cuts led to the closing of more than 250 schools. Now the threat comes from declining birth rates, which are dragging school budgets down with them and there's no end in sight - Canada's elementary and secondary schools will likely lose another 500,000 students over the next decade, according to Statistics Canada.

"It's scary because no one seems to know what to do, how to handle these schools in the cities and in the counties, especially the smallest schools," said Karen Aranha, a parent with two children in the Thames Valley District School Board, where enrolment has declined 11.2 per cent since 2002 and 25 schools are slated to close by 2012.

"All across Canada people are in the same uncharted territories," said Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education. "Everybody's looking at school closings, everybody's trying to figure out what to do."

In the report, Ms. Kidder and her co-authors suggest the problem of declining numbers has been exacerbated by dated funding models.

Those models, which are based on 1997 enrolment numbers, mean that only 3 per cent of elementary schools and 42 per cent of secondary schools have sufficient head counts to fund a full-time teacher librarian.

The ministry has been slowly moving away from the per pupil model of funding.

"There's a whole roll of money and grants we've put in place to take boards away from the head count," said Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.

The smallest schools are often the most vulnerable: As much as 66 per cent of the province's funding model is enrolment-sensitive.

"I believe in small schools and I believe in small schools for all the reasons that parents put forward, the question is when is a school is too small," said Gayle Stucke, director of the Lambton Kent District School Board.

School closings don't easily translate into savings in rural areas because they often increase busing costs, Ms. Stucke said. Some students in remote areas already endure an hour-long commute every day.

Transportation costs are less of an issue at the Toronto District School Board, a doughnut hole of declining enrolment within the population boom of the 905 area code, due to a dense population and public transit.

But subways haven't stopped immigrant families from settling in the 905 area code, and a high concentration of private schools has helped student numbers decrease by more than 12 per cent over the past seven years.

The TDSB recently said it would review another 35 schools and chair John Campbell said he expected the board would be tackling school closings for several more years.