Quote:
Originally Posted by king10
They're miles behind the Catholic School Board in Hamilton in closing schools and keeping capacity percentages high. They have more than twice the amount of high school than the Catholic board with many less than 75% capacity. When you get paid by the government per student it makes it tough to upkeep a massive 75 yr old building when its below 75% capcity.
The catholic school board has 7 highschools. 6 of which have been built since the mid 90's, so less than 20 years old. They've had so much money in their coffers that they're shelling out $2 million per high school to install turf fields and grandstands. The catholic schools have class sizes of around 20 to 25. Most schools have population from 1500 to 2000. Its economies of scale, its more efficent that way.
IMO the publiic board was slow to react to demographic changes in the city and gave in too much to demands of parents wanting to keep underpopulated school's open. For example the catholic board has ONE high school in the old Lower City Hamlton propper where there aren't as many young families as the suburbs. Meanwhile the public board has at least 4 that I can count off the top of my head.
I agree with bigguy1231. Inner city schools need to be closed to keep the system "healthy." Times change, demographics change and people can't be caught up in the nostaglia of their old school. The new schools need to be built where the new neighbourhoods are popping up.
Lets not forget that there are less children in the school system than 20 to 30 years ago because of the aging populaion of baby boomers who make up a large chunk of the population.
Closing schools and "rightsizing" is a necesary evil. The financial situation when comparing the Catholic to Public school board is night and day as evidenced by its shiny new highschools and multi million dollar sports fields.
|
Same thing with my city; before the 90s, there was just 2 Catholic schools, both that were built in the 50's and 60s. One of the high schools (my former one) wasn't even a high school till 1988 (used to be a seminary, then an all boys and boarding school). Since the 90s, they have built about 7 new high schools, the most recent being 2013.
My only problem with them closing schools, is closing the rural ones. I agree with them closing the inner city ones, but the rural ones I have a problem with. Mainly because those kids have to travel at least 30 minutes to a hour, on a bus, just to get to school. Plus, the fact that each year they have about 5-10 schools on the chopping block, which is just too much to close year after year.
IMO, the public school board should be closing and merging their schools more effectively, or at least making repairs to the ones they kept open over others. For example, back when they wanted to close Sherwood, Mountain and Hill Park schools, they decided to keep Sherwood and close Barton. But present day, if you have been to Sherwood recently, it is just a crap hole. It looks like it had been closed for the past few years. The exterior walls are falling apart, the courtyard is a mess, cobwebs everywhere, missing ceiling tiles, doors/walls that need repainting, etc. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if they just ended up closing that school as well, since they neglected it and made no repairs to it whatsoever.