SUDBURY—As populations shift, expand and shrink across regions, school boards are faced with some of their most difficult decisions, how to deal with schools whose regions no longer support the size of the schools they once did. Although Manitoulin Island’s many small Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) schools are somewhat insulated from the threat of closure by the distance that lies between their communities, that doesn’t mean that economies might not be sought and found, some more distasteful than others.
A series of three community meetings were held recently, one in each of Sudbury, Espanola and the last in Little Current, that sought to find ways to utilize the excess space to be found within Island schools that would complement the educational nature of those institutions.
“We had a great turnout,” said RDSB Director of Education Norm Blaseg. “There were representatives from a number of Island municipalities, the District Services Board and even a mayor and a CAO.”
The meetings, which the RDSB hopes will be held on an annual basis going forward, sought input on the possibilities to utilize the spare capacity that lies within Island schools. The Island schools, whose communities are by and large growing older and smaller, each have more space than required for their current (and more importantly in some ways, future) enrollment.
With shrinking enrollment numbers, there are really only three sources of economies (aside from closure) available to school boards faced with basically fixed costs for heat and hydro and maintenance.
One of those choices, allowed under the provincial provisions that govern school boards, is called “right sizing.” Under that option, portions of a school are bulldozed to bring its size closer to that dictated by the funding available for the size of its enrollment. “That is something we really do not want to do,” said Mr. Blaseg, who pointed out that demolition of a perfectly functioning portion of a building is a tremendous waste. But right-sizing does reduce the ongoing costs of maintaining services to a building.
Another even less palatable choice is the reduction of services to the students, lowering the number of teachers, educational assistants or specialized educational services provided at the school to meet the cost of funding. “That is something we really do not want to see happening in our schools,” admitted Mr. Blaseg.
The third option, and potentially the easiest to swallow, is finding convergence of interest with other community service providers to utilize the excess space, doctors, dentists and social services coming in high on the top of the list.
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“This can work out well for both the students and their parents,” noted Mr. Blaseg. “Parents are already used to coming to the school and the students would not have far to go to access such services.”
The prevalence of municipal representatives at the meetings does not come as a surprise, he noted, as the presence of a school in a community plays such a central role in attracting and keeping residents in the municipality.
As reported in the Manitoulin West Recorder, for Assiginack Public School the 2015-2016 estimated average daily enrolment is 124 and by 2019-20 it is projected to fall to 112, with on the ground capacity of 118 by 2015-2016. The utilization rate for the school for this year is 105 percent and is projected by 2019-2020 to be 95 percent. There are no excess pupil spaces currently, but there are expected to be six by 2019-2020. Using the same years for Central Manitoulin Public School the current average daily enrolment is 179, 165 projected in 2019-2020 and an on-ground capacity of 286. The school has a utilization rate of 63 percent in 2015-2016 and 58 percent utilization expected in 2019-2020; there are 107 excess pupil spaces in 2015-2016 and projected to be 121 in 2019-2020.
For Charles C. McLean Public School (Gore Bay) there is an average daily enrolment of 158, which is expected to be 139 in 2019-2020 and an on-ground capacity of 303. The current space utilization rate is 52 percent and projected to be 46 percent in 2019-2020. With 145 excess pupil spaces in 2015-2016 and 164 anticipated in 2019-2020.
For Little Current Public School, the current average daily enrolment is 323 estimated to be 318 in 2019-20 and an on-ground capacity of 518; 62 percent space utilization this year and 61 percent in 2019-2020, with 195 excess pupil spaces in 2015-2016 and 200 in 2019-2020.
For Manitoulin Secondary School the average daily enrolment is 440, estimated to be 401 in 2019-2020, with a current on-ground capacity of 744; with a current space utilization rate of 59 percent this year and 54 percent in 2019-2020 and 304 excess pupil spaces in 2015-2016 and 343 excess pupil spaces in 2019-2020.
The Manitoulin Sudbury District Services Board (DSB) already has a working relationship with the RDSB, as the Best Start Hubs and daycares currently operate from RDSB schools such as Little Current Public School.
Although no immediate action on joint utilization of space in Island schools has yet come about from the meetings, Mr. Blaseg said that the potential and ideas that came out of these first sessions appear to hold great promise.
