Public school board trustee Alan Halberstadt continues to advocate for the creation of a single school board — and Tuesday night, his fellow trustees were on his side.

The Greater Essex County District School Board's trustees voted unanimously in favour of writing a letter in support of merging into one publicly funded school board with two languages. Trustee Ron Le Clair declared a conflict of interest prior to the vote.

"I'm very pleased because it's something that people in the past haven't wanted to touch because they figure it'll upset the other school boards," said Halberstadt.

"The idea is not to wipe them out but to have a collaborative system, and end the duplication, and save a lot of money."

Halberstadt said a merge could lead to more than a billion dollars in savings, and he added that particularly with the province's latest cut backs to education in the budget, this would be an opportunity to get some some money back into the system.

The letter will endorse an already existing letter from the chair of The Rainbow District School Board out of Sudbury, Ont., sent to Ontario's Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson.

That letter was dated March 12, 2019 and asked the ministry of education to consider the creation of one school board. Sudbury's school board said the request comes in response to the minister's "ongoing call for input on how efficiencies can be achieved throughout the education sector in Ontario."

Chair of the GECDSB Jessica Sartori stressed that there is no intention to offend the other boards with the letter, but that it's simply time to have a conversation.

"It seems to be gaining momentum, and it seemed like an idea where its time has come to really start talking about it and giving it some respectful consideration," said Sartori.

In addition to the letter being sent to provincial officials including Education Minister Lisa Thompson and Premier Doug Ford, the board's letter will also be copied to local MPPs Lisa Gretzky, Percy Hatfield, Taras Natyshak and Rick Nicholls.