A rapidly growing group against school closures in the province will be headed to Queen’s Park on Monday. The Ontario Alliance Against School Closures (OAASC) is calling on the Minister of Education to take action. Since being started less than a month ago the OAASC already has 40 signed letters from Save Our School groups across the province along with support from CUPE Ontario and other organisations.
Temiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof says schools are the heart of local communities and in smaller towns in Northern Ontario there’s a problem with them closing down. Vanthof doesn’t think it’s because the school boards want to shut them down, more so because there’s not enough funding to go around. The MPP said in Temagami, the town is always worried about whether their school will close or not.
Vanthof says when schools in smaller towns close it forces students to take extended bus rides to get to and from classes. The MPP adds in cases where kids are being bused hours to get to school everyday it’s not good for their health or education. He says in our region there could be members of the OAASC planning on bringing this fight to Queen’s Park, but if so, they haven’t approached his office.
