Grand Bay-Westfield parents welcome plan to close schools

A proposal to close Inglewood School and Grand Bay Primary drew support from the two Grand Bay-Westfield communities at a public meeting Tuesday night, one day after parents of children at Morna Heights School expressed their opposition to the potential merger.

The Anglophone South School District's education council (DEC) is considering a plan to replace the three schools with a new one, as part of a sustainability study for Inglewood School.

The provincial government policy 409 includes triggers that can launch a review if enrolment drops below 100 students, or the functional capacity falls below 30 per cent.

Those don't apply to Grand Bay Primary or Morna Heights, a west Saint John school that borders the town, but the DEC can look beyond those triggers if there's a strong enough case to consolidate with a school that does meet the criteria.

"Morna was not targeted, it's part of a bigger picture," said DEC chairman Robert Fowler.

The reality is, I can't see in this current fiscal climate anyone putting up a brand new $12 to $15 million dollar building to accommodate two small schools with less than 200 kids when we're in a situation of declining enrollment."

Meetings for the public to raise concerns about the proposal have wrapped up.

Fowler expects the DEC will make an announcement about the fate of the schools on Jan. 13

"It's important for people to understand the DEC is in a difficult position. We're trying our best to rationalize old, aging infrastructure, budgets are shrinking, we are faced with difficult decisions," Fowler said.

"But at the end of the day, what we're trying to accomplish is what is the best educational opportunity for all 24,000 students in Anglophone South. And that sometimes takes a delicate balance but we're doing our best."

Grand Bay-Westfield desires change

Town councilor Ryan Snodgrass attended the meeting in Grand Bay-Westfield Tuesday night.

His two youngest children attend Grand Bay Primary.

Snodgrass says a new, modern school would offer them a better learning environment and provide more opportunities for students with special needs.

"There would be resource rooms, special care support areas for those children, it would offer accessibility to people with physical disabilities, none of the existing schools offer that up here," Snodgrass said Wednesday.

"Both the schools we work out of don't have full size gymnasiums, they're working out of multipurpose rooms. It would be nice to see our children afforded the same opportunities other children in other areas of New Brunswick are afforded through new schools."

If school closures are recommended, the province will have to approve the decision.

Morna Heights was included in a  proposal four years ago to merge with Inglewood School, and Grand Bay Primary, but a Save Our School group successfully lobbied to remove it from the plan.

Parents there say they are discouraged to be revisiting the idea, when enrolment at the K to 5 school is climbing.