5 schools closed by English School District

Five schools in this province are slated toclose following a meeting of the Newfoundland and LabradorEnglish School BoardSaturday.

Holy Cross Junior High in St. John's, WhitbourneElementaryin Whitbourne,Sacred Heart All Grade in Conche, Long Island Academy on Long Island, Notre Dame Bay, and Heritage Academy in Greenspond,will not re-open next fall followinga secret-ballotvote by the district's board of trustees.

Vote results were not made public and ballots were destroyed after the votes.

"We have the option of using a paper ballot and all of the trustees around the table are volunteers. Many of them work at private jobs and sometimes,you know, how you stand up and be counted, I guess, or raise your hand to close a school could affectyour business or affect your employer," said Board of Trustees Chair Milton Peach.

"I think in the interest of our trustees having the rightto vote without being publiclysaying what was the reason they did it.We had lots of discussion around that andthat has been done quite often at school boards for that reason."

In lateFebruary,The Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of School Councils saidthe provincial government should put a moratorium on school closures until new school board trustees are elected.

The last school board elections were held in 2009, when the province had four school boards for English schools.

In 2013 those four boards merged into one: the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District.The 15 trustees on the current board were appointed from the old boards, not elected.

• Stop school closures until trustees elected, says school councils group
• School board trustee elections long overdue, says Dale Kirby
• No need to rush school board elections, says Dale Kirby

Parents spoke out

Holy Cross Junior High students will now attend Brother Rice Junior High in St. John's.

Parents ofHoly Cross studentsrallied in Marchafter a proposal by the English School District to shut the school down.

About 50 parents attended a meeting March 4to discuss a "school system review process" that could see the160 students movedto Brother Rice.

Parents of Sacred Heart All Grade students in Conche, on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula,also spoke out after they learned in February that their school might be closed.

They say it will be unsafe to bus childrenalmost anhourover a pot-hole pocked, gravel roadto a school in Roddickton. That road Route 434 has been deemedone of Atlantic Canada's worst roads by The Canadian Automobile Associationfor three of the last six years.

At least one of those parentswas in St. John's for the vote on Saturday.

"That road is treacherous. And telling us right now that there are going to be road improvements it's only a band-aid fix, some more gravel put on that road," saidPaula Talbot, parent of two of the twelve children enrolled at Sacred Heart All Grade.

Talbot criticizedher local MHA ChristopherMitchelmore as well as Education Minister Dale Kirby.

"The two of them todayshould be too ashamed to raise their heads for what they have put our children through, and what is coming up," she said.

"This is not over.Not by a long shot.'- Patti Kennedy

Patti Kennedy, the school council chair for WhitbourneElementary was also at the meeting.

"Our initial reaction is anger followed by shock," said Kennedy.

"The process is flawed. Round two begins on Monday morning. This is not over. Not by a long shot,"