June 16, 2011
The Special Board meeting on the Clearview Elementary ARC resulted in the June 2012 closure of Duntroon Central.
Key pieces of the final motion that was approved by the Board include an Attendance Area Review and an Extended French Feasibility study; both starting in the fall of 2011. In addition students from the Singhampton area that, in earlier staff recommendations, were to be split between schools in Creemore and Nottawa, will now for-the-most-part, be transferred to Nottawa.
The Attendance Area Review will focus on repatriating students that live in Clearview Twp. but that have been bussed into Wasaga Beach schools. This will have a supportive impact to all students numbers in elementary schools in New Lowell and Stayner.
The Extended French feasibility student will determine if there is the support within Clearview and surrounding areas for an Extended French program within an elementary school within Clearview. Schools previously discussed have included Byng and Nottawasaga Creemore.
Simcoe.com -Breaking News Duntroon to Close in 2012 June 16, 2012
Mike Gennings
DUNTROON – Simcoe County District School Board trustees voted on Thursday night to close Duntroon Central Public School.
Trustee Caroline Smith, who represents Collingwood and Clearview Township, voted to keep the school open.
Smith said she was disappointed the majority of her fellow trustees didn’t feel the same.
“I’m sincerely sorry that this happened,” she said minutes after the special meeting of the board ended. “I tried my very hardest to provide reasons to keep the school going. I have to say the parents are the most incredible group I’ve met in my entire life. They are dynamic, go-getters, loyal, the list of adjectives goes on.”
Smith said she thinks her message and that of families with ties to Duntroon – the message being that rural schools matter and should be preserved – didn’t resonate with other trustees because so many represent more urban areas in Simcoe County.
“This is why we need a rural policy. And this is something that I’m going to be pushing for in the next few months of this year. It’s going to be my new cause,” she said. “We have to start recognizing that there is a huge difference between a population that’s dense and has schools very close together and one that isn’t.”
Others at the meeting were just as upset by the board’s decision.
“It was pretty unimaginative,” Clearview Township councillor Shawn Davidson said.
Deputy Mayor Alicia Savage agreed.
“It’s the first nail in the coffin of rural schools in Simcoe County,” she said. “The board failed the families and children. They failed to fulfill their elected responsibility to advocate, to lobby, to work with communities and to address unfair funding systems and the delivery of education in rural Ontario.”
Enterpise Bulletin -Duntroon Central to Close 2012 – Morgan Ian Adams June 17, 2011
MIDHURST — Simcoe County District School Board trustees sounded the death knell for Duntroon Central, Thursday night, voting to shutter the school next June.
In spite of a passionate argument by Collingwood/Clearview trustee Caroline Smith to give the school another year before making a final decision — a bid to allow the community to find a “viable partnership” for the facility, build enrollment numbers, and review attendance areas for elementary schools in Clearview and Wasaga Beach — trustees instead opted to close the school south of Collingwood and shuffle the attendance area between elementary schools in Nottawa, Stayner, and Creemore.
The Attendance Review Committee – made of of representatives of school communities in the western part of Clearview Township — had recommended the school remain open and options, such as offering an extended French program, implemented in order to bring the school’s enrollment up from its current level of just under 100 students.
A- Channel Boradcast June 17 2011
Some of the facts are off but the interviews with the parents are excellent. Decision was 7-3.
