Parents, students fight to save Holy Cross

People from the community around a school in central St. John's gathered Thursday night to plan how they'll fight a school board plan to shut it down.

Holy Cross Junior High is on the Eastern School District's list of schools it will close in a reorganization that largely sees older schools in the core of St. John's shut down to make way for newer schools or expansions in outlying residential areas.

School council president Gerry Sullivan said Holy Cross, which has been a fixture in the Ricketts Road neighbourhood for decades, provides an important service.

"[With a] population of 160 students, we are maximizing this as a community school," he said. "The kids walk here, there's no busing at all - it's truly a community school."

The Eastern School District is poised to vote in March on whether to close Holy Cross as part of a broader plan that would or could involve the closures of other schools in central St. John's, including Macpherson Elementary, I.J. Samson Junior High, Bishops College, Booth Memorial High School and Holy Cross Elementary School.

Student council president Greg Smith said Holy Cross Junior High is the heart of his neighbourhood, in large part because everybody lives nearby.

"Everyone knows everybody. It's a really good aspect to a school. Like, you talk to your teachers [and] they treat you as a regular person," he said.

 Renee McLean, a single parent whose daughter walks to school each day, said after-school activities would have to be dropped if she is bused to another school in another area.

"I will not have [any] transportation to get them there," she said. "Metrobus is costly, all busing is costly, taxis are outrageous."

The school council is preparing one last pitch to the school board.