11 P.E.I. schools should close: report

A report by P.E.I.'s Eastern School District released Wednesday is recommending the closure of 11 of its 43 schools.

If the report is accepted, the schools on the list would now be in the middle of their final academic year. They would not reopen in September 2009. The schools tagged for closure are:

• St. Teresa's Consolidated.
• Tracadie Cross Consolidated.
• St. Peter's Consolidated.
• Dundas Consolidated.
• Georgetown Elementary.
• Grand Tracadie Elementary.
• St. Jean Elementary, Charlottetown.
• Parkdale Elementary, Charlottetown.
• Eastern Kings Consolidated, Souris.
• Fortune Consolidated.
• Rollo Bay Consolidated.

The closures are being recommended to deal with declining enrolments.

The closures become more numerous in the eastern portions of the district. In the Bluefield family of schools, there are no closures recommended. One school is listed from the Charlottetown Rural family and two from the Colonel Gray family, the other family covering the Charlottetown area.

Three are listed for closure in the Morell family, and two in the Montague family. In Souris, three closures are recommended. Some parents in the Souris region have already organized to lobby for consolidation of schools in that area.

Following the release of the report Wednesday, the provincial government is opening a 90-day public discussion period. After that, the cabinet will make the final decision.

A decade-long problem

Study author Sandy MacDonald, the superintendent of the Eastern School District, noted enrolments have been falling at an alarming rate for the last decade. Twenty schools in the district have lost 30 to 50 per cent of their population.

The principal problem with small schools, said MacDonald, is that they cannot offer comprehensive training in specialty areas: physical education, music and library resources. He noted some communities had already been pressing for change.

"All stakeholders are considering the quality of student learning as the first priority," said MacDonald in a news release.

"I am recommending these school closures so that our students have the opportunity to access quality programming in well-resourced facilities."

New school hoped for

Of the five schools in the Souris family, three are recommended to be closed. That would leave only Souris Consolidated for grades 1 to 7 and Souris High School for grades 8-12. While the building of new schools is outside the scope of this report, MacDonald said enrolments, now at about 675 students in total, are expected to continue to decline, and the region would be better served with a single school covering kindergarten to grade 12.

The report is recommending more comprehensive rezoning for the 2010-11 school year, and relatively simple redistribution of students for next year.

• Students from St. Teresa's and Tracadie Cross would attend Mount Stewart Consolidated.
• Students from St. Peter's would attend Morell Consolidated.
• Students in grades 1-6 from Dundas would attend Cardigan Consolidated, and those in grades 7-8 would attend Montague Intermediate.
• Students in grades 1-6 from Georgetown would attend Cardigan Consolidated, and those in grades 7-8 would attend Montague Intermediate.
• Students from Grand Tracadie would attend L. M. Montgomery School.
• Students from St. Jean would attend West Kent Elementary.
• Students from Parkdale Elementary would attend Prince St. Elementary.