At a meeting Monday evening, the Accommodation Review Committee (or ARC) tasked with presenting recommendations to school board trustees, and dealing with the future of North Bay schools for generations to come, tabled motions and amendments with respect to their vision.
The group, made up of stakeholders announced their intentions to request that the school board rebuild or refurbish the current West Ferris and Widdifield schools and close Chippewa Secondary School.
The secondary schools would cease to exist in their current incarnations. Chippewa would close its doors completely (and the land most likely deemed surplus), and schools would remain on the Widdifield and West Ferris sites, but with different names. A representative for students of Chippewa on the ARC voiced her dissension, but the motion passed with more than the necessary 75 per cent consensus, with 16 of 18 members voting in favour of the plan.
The sparsely attended meeting, held in the auditorium at Chippewa, also heard a motion passed to close E.W. Norman and E.T. Carmichael public schools and rebuild at the current W.J. Fricker site. Like the secondary schools, the new school would be renamed and rebranded.
Paul Addie, facilitator for the ARC explained the group's rationale for the three secondary schools-to-two model after the meeting, saying that the passion of the public speakers at previous meetings led the committee away from the three-to-one preferred option.
Said Addie, "There were concerns about traffic and the impact of using the Chippewa site as one of the choices," so the committee opted to go with the current Widdifield site.
Addie continued, saying that keeping a school in the south end of the city was essential in the group's deliberations. "We heard from no one that West Ferris should close. I believe that was a big driver, there needs to be a school in the south."
"Other than traffic, Widdifield is a newer building and has sufficient space there for a large [refurbishing project]. We heard more about traffic issues [at Chippewa] than we did about programming issues from the community," said Addie.
A plan that would have seen school start times in the Chippewa corridor staggered to alleviate traffic concerns did not result in a recommendation from the ARC. "They're leaving it to staff to come up with creative solutions to deal with the traffic," advised Addie. He added, "Whatever the board decides, they have to pass it by the City to get permits for the refurbishments, and one of the proposals articulated that there had to be a site approval plan and our City rep told us that would not be done without a traffic study."
The ARC's choice of combining three schools into two would see the French Immersion, Extended French, and International Baccalaureate programs moved to West Ferris, a move that would initially balance the enrollment at the two remaining schools. With enrollment at each school estimated to be 1,100 in 2020, both schools would be funded at the same level by the government.
These are recommendations only, the nine public school board trustees must still decide to adopt the plans put forth by the ARC. Whether there is funding available from the government to rebuild or refurbish the recommended schools will weigh heavily on the minds of the trustees. The original preferred option of the board, to combine three schools into one new school at the current Chippewa site, is still very much in play.
On May 23, the trustees will receive the ARC recommendations and ARC members will speak about how the decisions of the committee were reached.
On June 12, the trustees will hold a special board meeting at 6:30 p.m. at West Ferris Secondary School. Speakers are invited to provide feedback on any ARC recommendations. Anyone interested in presenting will be required to register for the speakers' list and provide their written submission (up to two pages in length) to [email protected] by noon on Thursday, June 8. Each speaker will be given five minutes.
For more information on the ARC process, click here.
It is possible that additional special meetings will be added to hear public feedback.
Trustees will make a final decision in public session at the regular board meeting on June 27.
