Rural community still trying to cope years after schools closed

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Residents in Norwich say they are still dealing with the closure of a number of smaller schools years after they were shuttered due to declining enrollment.

Jo-Ann Hanson graduated from Norwich District High School (NDHS) in 1989 and says she loved every minute there.

“This school has been here my entire life. My dad was a graduate of this school, so I didn’t remember ever this community not having a high school.”

The community rallied on October 2008 to keep the school open, but their pleas went unheeded.

“The kids, the students, were sad overall,” Hanson says. “I mean this is what they knew. This had always, again, been part oft heir community and their lives.”

The Thames Valley District School Board says a drop in the number of students prompted the decision to close the school.

Graham Hart, a trustee with the board says “One of the goals is to increase the number of students successfully getting a secondary school diploma. And we’re trying to improve that across the board.”

As part of that plan, what was once NDHS will reopen as Emily Stowe Public School in September.

The board is merging students at the newly renovated elementary school, closing three other area elementary schools.

Administrators say the move will help “meet or exceed program standards.”

Hart says that was one of the big challenges at NDHS, where too few students signing up for courses meant they weren’t offered and optional credits were taken instead.

“The problem then was they didn’t have the required subjects to allow them to take a particular college or university course when they moved outside the community.”

Brent Van Parys was on the Accomodation Review Committee (ARC) that recommended that NDHS stay open.

He says “It’s had a lasting effect, I think, in the community.”

But he believes the some board members had already made up their minds.

“Most of us, not all of us, felt the whole process was very much window dressing, that the conclusion was foregone and that the ARC process was very much about being seen to have done their diligence, or their duties, according to the legislation on school closures.”

While Hart says the decision wasn’t made ahead of the process, he recognizes that it split up students and sent them to schools 25 kilometres away.

Van Parys adds “The kids in the community here were split very much along the lines of ‘Where are you going?’”

And while there are obvious benefits and drawbacks to the decision, Hanson says “When you look at rural Ontario, it’s disheartening to see what’s leaving our communities.”