(Above: Public board trustee Lynn Scott.)
Over 50 people were at Johnny Leroux Arena Thursday night to hear the latest about the push for a public high school in Stittsville.
A dozen buses a day transport Stittsville teenagers to South Carleton High School in Richmond. For nearly 10 years, the public school board has identified a Stittsville high school as a priority, but so far they have not received funding from the province. The project currently #2 on the board’s priority list.
The meeting included an update from parents Jenny Guth and Jennifer Smith, and a Q&A session with public officials including mayor Jim Watson, councillor Shad Qadri, public trustee Lynn Scott, Catholic trustee John Curry, and Brad McNulty from MPP Jack Maclaren’s office.
The crowd heard that the biggest roadblock for getting funding appears to be that South Carleton is about 300 students under capacity. The Ministry of Education will likely not approve funding for another high school in the area until there is a clear and current need for more capacity.
For a full account of the meeting, check out our live tweets using hashtag #stittsvillehigh.
Here are two slide decks that were presented at the meeting by the organizers.
What do you think? Add your comments below or send us an email at feedback@stittsvillecentral.ca
“The Ministry of Education will likely not approve funding for another high school in the area until there is a clear and current need for more capacity.”
Would it not make sense to change the strategy, to not create the sentiment that “another high school” is need, but rather, the current high school needs to be replaced by a new one, so that the quality of education, quality of life, improves for the majority.
The Ministry of Education also has to pay money to the Catholic system, and Sacred Heart has many non-Catholics in them. You’d be solving problems there using a new high school as well, using funds that would otherwise have been spent on the Catholic side. Given that the public system is hopelessly behind, it deserves its turn, and it makes sense for the next move to be in the public system, not in the Catholic system.
Is it not possible to put some numbers behind this? Right now, South Carleton has capacity for how many? How much capacity does Sacred Heart have? Build a school that will distribute the students better, and build in some room for future capacity. Stittsville is going to need it.
End of day, given the plan should probably be closing South Carleton, the end-cost may not be so bad. It’d improve things a great deal on many fronts.
The board should be looking after the majority foremost. Is that majority in Richmond – especially once you compare with a public high school in Stittsville populated by mostly Stittsvillians!
Aside from all this, SC *is* pretty darn old. You can’t keep on keep giving the impression of old outdated to the students! Things have to be modernized from time to time. You have to inspire students. Make a cool suave building and give the kids some momentum! Create the excitement! It’s the future!
Look at Sacred Heart right now. It’s a nice lush tall large building sitting on a pristine lot at a prime location. Compare that to SC. Old outdated uninspiring worn out in the wrong location.
So, there are lots of arguments in favor of building a new fresh high school in the right location, and lots of arguments against keeping a highly outdated uninspiring building in the wrong location.
The only argument working against it, is the “SC is 300 under capacity so you can’t justify building another one”. But that’s an incorrect argument. It should be not “another one”, but a *replacing* one!
Many problems would be solved, and it’s totally justified in every way – including financially ! ! !
I understand the desire to have a high school closer to Stitsville but if that happens it must not force closure of south Carlton because south now serves students form as far away a bruits rapids and may of the students from south Ottawa already travel 40 minutes or more to school.
South Carlton is centrally located to the area it serves so if an there is another school built it must be in addition to not in replacement of south Carlton.
An even more economical option would be to merge physical schools between Catholic and public boards. Its easy enough to have simply offer required religious programming to the Catholic students within the same building. The majority of the curriculum content is in non denominational and does need to be segregated.