According to Annie Kidder, executive director officer for People for Education, declining student enrolment is the biggest fundamental issue facing school boards across Ontario.

“Enrolment in the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) has declined by 13 percent since 2002,” she said. “That’s drastic. It means funding declines by about that percentage.”

At the beginning of April, TLDSB voted to dissolve the alternate school year program offered at Huntsville Public School, as student enrolment had been declining by about three per cent per year over the last few years.

In early 2000, an announcement was made by TLDSB that Dorset Public School would close down due to dwindling student enrolment.

A press release issued by People for Education, a group of parents who work to support public education in Ontario’s English, French and Catholic schools, indicated that Ontario’s schools have lost nearly 90,000 students over the last six years, and, according to Statistics Canada, that trend is going to continue into the future. Because much of the funding that school boards receive is based on numbers of students, fewer students means fewer programs, less funding, and, in many cases, closing schools.  People for Education research shows that Ontario’s smaller schools are less likely to have teacher-librarians, guidance counsellors, music and physical education teachers and special education support staff.

Sandy McKay, who had two children attending the school in 2000 and was on a committee to try and keep the school open, said approximately 28 students were attending the school when it closed.  

“Enrolment figures were a problem for the board because they didn’t have money to sustain small schools with the funding formal at the time,” he said. “The formula was set up by the province to close small schools because of the costs.”

People for Education conducted a study and revealed that in four of Ontario’s northern boards, enrolment has declined more than 20 per cent since 2002. One northern board has 36 per cent fewer students than it had in 2002. Only nine English-language boards have had enrolment increases and 31 out of Ontario’s 72 school boards have seen enrolment declines of more than 10 per cent since 2002.

The report states that there are over 100,000 students in nearly 300 schools currently under review in the province and 50 school closures have already been recommended. However, Kidder noted that none of the schools in the TLDSB are in for closing

“School boards have to make difficult decisions about programs and what schools to keep open, because funding is based on student numbers and it’s hard to keep all schools open when enrolment declines,” said Kidder. “It doesn’t mean that these schools that are being recommended to close are going to. It means they are under review, which is standard process.”

Kidder explained that in 2006 the province set up guidelines. ‘If you’re going to look at closing schools and moving kids around, you have to follow a certain process,” she says.  “The board sets up an accommodation review committee (ARC) and decides what schools should be reviewed. The committee holds public meetings and makes recommendations. Over the course of those months, ARC can make recommendations to the board, who will ultimately decide which ones (schools) stay and which ones go.”

Kidder said the reason for the decline in students across Ontario is partly due to the fact that there are fewer children in rural and northern areas and the population is shifting to urban and suburban areas.

“People are less likely to have five kids now than a generation ago,” she said. “Absolutely, students are the ones affected. When we made this report, we said, ‘Let’s think about how we can use our schools differently so we’re not just closing schools in reaction to declining enrolment. For example are there ways we could be using our school building that would allow schools to be open and for the community to use them more effectively? There are examples of this already . . . .  It’s a school, but it’s also a public library and community centre. Or public health uses part of school. It requires combining funding into one building and that’s hard right now.”

The press release further states that according to Statistics Canada, the number of students in Canada’s elementary and secondary schools will decline by as much as 500,000 in the next 10 years.  The population between the age of 5 and 14 may begin to slowly increase after 2016, but the population aged 15 to 19 will continue to decline until 2021, after which it may increase slightly. Statistics Canada does not predict any school-age population boom in the foreseeable future.

Paul Dorion, superintendent of secondary school improvement for TLDSB, stated that as of present there are no school in the board that are under review or being considered to be closed down. However, he noted, that over time, if student numbers continue to dwindle, there could be a negative impact.

“It can’t drop three per cent of students every year without it adding up to the point where some schools will become very small,” he said, adding that currently there are no schools in Muskoka are at that point. “The other side of the coin is that while there are fewer dollars (available) to the school board, the Ministry of Education has increased per-student funding in the system and that has helped to soften the blow as well. There is also declining enrolment funding in the board that helps offset loss of revenue.”

Dorion said he personally believes that TLDSB has managed the decline in student bodies effectively and as a result of that, there have been no redundant teachers in the school board system and that’s a positive sign.