Browns Flat school to close, Norton to remain open

New Brunswick's last two provincial school sustainability studies this year have resulted in a vote to keep one rural school open, and a recommendation to close the other.

The Anglophone South district education council voted six to four in favour of closing Browns Flat Elementary. The K-5 school has 43 students. If it's approved for closure by the minister for education, children from Browns Flat will have to take a bus to Grand Bay Primary, 22 kilometres away.

Minutes later, the council voted four to five (with one abstention) against a motion to close Norton Elementary School. It is a K-5 school with 82 students.

Dozens of residents from Norton wore bright yellow shirts at the meeting. Many more watched in an overflow room at the Anglophone South District office in Saint John. 

Russell Hall, chairman of the Norton Parent School Support Committee (PSSC), said the win for his school was tainted by the recommendation to close Browns Flat Elementary. "We worked hard and had community support. It is wonderful news," he said. "We feel bad for Browns Flat. We know that they will not stop at this."

Browns Flat Elementary PSSC chairwoman Gloria Donald says she intends to take their fight to the minister.

'We're heartbroken'

"We're devastated. We're heartbroken. They made a mistake. We fought so hard. We have the entire community behind us," she said. 

"We are not going to settle for this. It's going to go to Minister [Serge] Rouselle and we are going to take possible legal action." 

Donald said not every council member was fully involved in the assessment of her school, making the process unfair. In the moments leading up to the Norton vote, council members openly argued about school funding. Norton residents raised money for a new school playground in 2012. 

Council member Larry Boudreau said, "It just blows me away on the rural schools, how they raise the money to bring the playgrounds, the rinks, the ball diamonds," he said. "Whereas the bigger schools in urban areas get that handed to them from the government."

Council member Charlotte McGill-Pierce disputed that saying, "that money is not being handed [to urban schools], parents are helping, parents are digging, they're all doing it."

Four other New Brunswick schools have already failed sustainability assessments this spring.

Coles Island, Pennfield Elementary, Lorne Middle School and Bath Elementary will close this spring unless the minister of education overturns the decision of the respective district education councils.

Before the meeting began, the District Education Council chairman Rob Fowler read two letters from the minister. Both letters approved his council's recommendations last month to close Lorne Middle School and Pennfield Elementary.