Calgary’s catholic school board voted this week to shutter St. John’s fine arts school in Hillhurst, pictured here. This fall, its students will be moved to a building in Dalhousie, farther out toward suburbia.
While I respect the idea of wanting to have kids study in schools closer to where they live, this annual shuffling of student populations unmasks an interesting problem facing our school boards and governments, not just in Calgary but continent-wide: For how long will we be able to afford to abandon existing schools in and near city cores, all the while spending millions putting up so many new school buildings in suburbia?
Of course, it’s one thing if a school is so old and decrepit it’s not worth renovating. It’s wholly another to abandon a school simply because its location is inconvenient, or because the neighbourhoods around them have fewer school-age children.
An interesting side effect of shifting educational services out of city cores, is that it becomes a hard sell to attract young families to older, central neighbourhoods because we’ve moved services for children out in the boonies.
It turns into a vicious cycle: With not enough children in inner-city neighbourhoods, we gradually shut their schools. But by losing the facilities to serve the needs of children, fewer families with kids (or kids on the way) will be tempted to move into the neighbourhood and keep them vibrant.
Nobody wins and it ends up costing everyone a bundle.
As much as the words “school bus” make some parents cringe, would it not be more logical to have our kids bused to existing facilities in older neighbourhoods, if they are still structurally suitable?
We should quit spending as much precious public resources on bricks and mortar and use the funds instead to pay for other kinds of infrastructure or enhanced programs. No point having so many new, pretty buildings if we won’t be able to pay for the teaching that’s supposed to happen inside.