School funding worries

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The Halton Catholic District School board is proposing to close 3 Burlington schools and a group of parents are rallying to keep them open. The Ontario Liberals say they can’t keep spending hundreds of millions of dollars funding empty seats.

St. Paul Catholic Elementary, St. Raphael on New street and St. Patrick on Kenwood could close because of declining enrolment and aging buildings. This information was outlined in a pupil accommodation review presented to trustees in January.

A group of parents has created an online petition against closing these schools. “We are seeing this across the province where we are seeing the closure of these community schools and putting kids on buses for long rides to other communities.”

These parents say if they have to bus their kids to school they will turn to the closest public school.

The Halton Catholic school board says that no schools have been closed since the mid 1990’s. In Hamilton 3 Catholic schools have closed since 2010 and in Niagara 2 Catholic schools closed in 2014.

The Halton board of trustees has a meeting tomorrow night at 7:30 on Drury Lane to go over community feedback, the meeting is open to the public. On April 5th there is another board meeting where parents can share their thoughts on the school closures.