Re-Purposing inner & almost inner-city schools

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Originally Posted by Cage

I point to Dalhousie as an example. There are currently two public elementary schools where only one is viable. The second school survives on a spanish immersion program that covers the whole NW division. Even with the Spanish immersion program, the school has poor utilization rate.

Closing one school in Dalhousise and implementing a bussing option is the most feasable use of funds. This way CBE does not have an operating budget that grows faster than population growth as there would be operating funds available to fully staff a new school in suburbs.

Speaking as a parent of children who are in the Spanish bilingual program (it is not immersion) this statement is not quite correct. Both my kids attended Dalhousie elementary so I speak from experience. The community does indeed have 2 public elementary schools but the regular english program has been shifted to just one of them. The other school is 100% spanish now as the regular program has been eliminated. The school does NOT suffer from a poor utilization rate, rather it is running at 100% capacity and they are turning kids away from the program. As a matter of fact next year another elementary school (in Silver Springs) will be added to the spanish program to accomodate the ever growing number of kids.

Even at this (shifting the english program to one school in Dalhousie) they still need to bus in kids from other communities.

Anyhow, to get back on topic (sort of), Innersoul does make a good point about repurposed schools losing a lot of direct contact with their communities when no local kids attend them, He is also right about extra curricular activities beinga challenge when every kid is either bussed or driven to school which makes it difficult to run an after school program (sports, theatre, band etc.)

It is both a curse and a blessing to have som many options and choices when it comes to school. We live in Tuscany and waited over 10 years for a school to be build. The wait was to the point that we didnt bother sending our kids to the new schools when they did open as they were alrady established with friends etc. in their other schools. The street I live on has about 10 kids of junior high age and EVERY ONE of them attends a different school. Makes it a challenge for them to get to know each other on the street when they are all running on different schedules.

[93JC]

Originally Posted by speedog

Quite impressive I must say that you resort to something like your last statement above because someone can't be persuaded to have the same viewpoint as yours. I truly expected more than that considering what appeared to be a robust discussion regarding the concerns I raised in my initial post in this thread but alas, I was wrong - apparently it is a "my way or no way" world in this forum for some.

93JC, this thread is respectfuly your playground now.

If there's anyone here who just made their "my way or no way" views clear it's you. You've either ignored my very salient points or tried to undermine my credibility by asking whether I have kids and volunteer in my neighbourhood, as if to say you are more qualified to speak to this issue.

Your argument from the very start has been in favour of closing one of your local schools because it's not used by local kids. Your entire point of view is based on the idea that non-local kids going to your local school is 'bad' because non-local traffic enters the neighbourhood and the non-local parents aren't involved in the community like the local parents once were. All along I've said that's lamentable but on a broader municipal and province-wide level: too bad.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: closing some inner-city schools may be the best option because the buildings have reached their end of life but closing them down because they are being fully utilized in a manner that does not meet your approval is not an option. We do not have the money to make school capacities match their neighbourhood's ever-changing demographics. The school boards are doing the best they can to keep every single school optimally filled because it costs a hell of a lot of money to build new schools and yeah, in many cases that means having a non-local student population.


My last statement? My last statement was paraphrasing the adage "opinions are like assholes: everyone has one." I don't know why that made you decide to become a sucky-baby, it was just an acknowledgement that you have your opinion and are sticking to it, and I have my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Neither one of us is going to be persuaded to change their opinion.

[Riise]

Temporary Below-Market Housing

During the community cycle where there are not enough kids to support the school, it could be temporarily subdivided into residential dwellings until the next stage in the community cycle where the demographics would be able to support a school.