i was formulating my post on this topic for the last few hours (i'm actually at work
) and it looks like jen beat me to it! great job!
i will post my thoughts anyway, some are repeats of Jen's but some are new..
----------------------------------------
The proposed public school that is shown on the site plan (on the big table at the Mattamy sales centre) for Coates Crossing is being cut from the Capital Plan that the board is drafting to send to the province.
Version 2 of the plan will be on the HDSB Planning Dept web page shortly:
http://www.hdsb.ca/main.aspx?sMenuKey=1 ... PageID=468
but I will summarize what was presented:
Version 2 of the plan was presented last night at a public meeting lead by the Superintendent of Facilities, Gerry Cullins and Elaine Westerhof from the Planning Department. They presented projection enrolment numbers that included kids from all the new subdivisions that are in works from Tremaine Rd. to James Snow Pkwy, north of Louis St. Laurant to the year 2015. Without building the Mattamy Lai #4 PS (that is what they have called it in the plan), projected enrolment in Hawthorne Village PS will be over 1000 pupils by 2009 and over 1200 by 2015!!! They are proposing that the kids from the area contained by Thomspon Rd. to Reg. Rd 25 & Louis St. Laurent to Derry (i.e. Coates Crossing and some of Sundial’s Hollybank) be accommodated at Sam Sheratt and Bruce Trail (the new school under construction at Costigan & Millar). The pipeline will be used as a dividing line with kids north of the pipeline going to Sam Sheratt and kids south of it going to Bruce Trail. Under this plan, Bruce Trail’s enrolment is projected to hit 900 by 2010 (all new schools are built for 600 without portables) and Sam Sheratt’s will hit 600 by 2011. It was only built for 380 pupils and was not designed for buses or portables (like the new schools are) but will have lots of both!
Many questions (I had to leave at 9pm, but they were still answering questions and listening to comments then) were asked about the rationale behind the decision to eliminate the 4th school from the plan, and the only reason that was given was lack of funding from the province. According to Gerry, the province only looks at the total pupil capacity of Halton as a region, and not Milton on it’s own. A flawed system, as far as I’m concerned. Gerry readily admitted that the numbers indicated that they were “two schools behind”. When asked why, then, were the putting forth a plan that did not include a new school in the Coates crossing area, his answer was that they were not confident that they would get the funding from the province for the new school and didn’t want to be left to work in crisis mode for the next year or so because they didn’t have an accommodation plan for all those kids. I had to leave, so I didn’t get a chance to point out that if they put forth a plan to the province that included the new school (and there is no doubt the numbers supported this) that they did have a contingency plan in the event the province denied the funding for the new school – it’s called “Version 2 of the Proposed Capital Plan”, the one they just presented!!! I did have a chance to ask about a “drop dead” date on the option to purchase the land set aside in Coates Crossing for the 4th school. And after a bit of pulling, the answer was that the land would be protected for at least 5 years, but once the area is completely built up and all the kids are being accommodated at other schools, don’t expect the province to see the need to fund construction of a new school. So the window of opportunity is NOW!
I apologize for the length of this post, I’m not usually into political rants, but I don’t think this is has anything to do with politics but everything to do with our kids!!
Please send your comments and concerns by May 18 to the HDSB Planning Dept, our Trustee, Paul Tate, our MPP Ted Chudleigh (Paul actually suggested contacting Kevin Flynn, the MPP from Oakville instead, since he is Liberal and may have more pull) and the new Minister of Education, Sandra Pupatello. To help, I have gathered all their contact info:
Elaine Westerhof : westerhofe@hdsb.ca
Paul Tate : tatep@hdsb.ca
Kevin Flynn: kflynn.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Ted Chudleigh : ted_chudleigh@ontla.ola.org
The Honourable Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Education
Mowat Block, 900 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario M7A 1L2, Canada.
info@edu.gov.on.ca
Please pass this on to all parents (or will-be parents) in Milton. Residents that live near Sam Sheratt may also have concerns about the proposed expansion of that school…
Email addresses are listed in this thread.