The Toronto District School board staff has recommended the temporary closing of 16 pools and the permanent closure of another seven.

The board will be considering the recommendation at its regular meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

Seventeen other pools are to remain open.

Here are the pools to be permanently closed, if the board accepts the staff's recommendations:

  • Bickford Centre
  • Bloor C.I.
  • Central Commerce Collegiate
  • Danforth Collegiate and Tech Institute
  • Oakwood C.I.
  • Parkdale C.I.
  • Western Technical

The staff had identified those pools as the most expensive to maintain. For example, the Bickford Centre's total operating cost is given as $321,577. In comparison, Deer Park Jr. & Sr. P.S., which is one of the 13 to be kept open, costs $207,962.

The following 16 pools will be temporarily closed and drained:

  • Carleton Village Sr. P.S.
  • Central Technical School
  • Downsview S.S.
  • Earl Grey Sr. P.S.
  • Fern Avenue Jr. & Sr. P.S.
  • Forest Hill C.I.
  • George Harvey C.I.
  • Humberside C.I.
  • Jarvis C.I.
  • Kensington Community School Jr.
  • Monarch Park
  • Queen Alexandra Sr. P.S.
  • Rosedale Heights S.S.
  • SATEC  @ W.A. Porter C.I.
  • Western Tech. Comm. School
  • Wintona/McMurrich Jr. P.S.

This is the latest step in an ongoing crisis. The TDSB announced plans in April 2008 to shut down 39 pools by June 2009. The board said it no longer had the money to keep the pools running.

The provincial health promotion ministry stepped in, giving enough funding to keep the pools running until this month.

In the interim, former Toronto mayor David Crombie was asked to examine the issue. But by April , no solution had been found.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said in April that the province would provide capital funding for the pools, but it would be up to the TDSB, the city of Toronto and the private sector to find the money to actually run them.

Toronto's Mayor David Miller said the city already pitched in by paying the TDSB for the day use of 33 other pools, supplementing the 30 pools the city operates on its own.

The debate over the pools will be part of a wider debate over the TDSB's budget.