With the Ombudsman having released a report on how former trustees with the Near North District School Board handled the high school consolidation issue in North Bay, expect a decision sooner than later on how many secondary schools the board will have left.
Board chair Jay Aspin says the report validates the current board’s decision to revisit the proposed closure of Widdifield Secondary School.
The report mentions three in-camera meetings the previous board held, meetings Aspin says introduced information that was not released to the public.
Aspin says the information from those meetings will be in the hands of the trustees before their regular meeting in September at which time they can begin the consolidation debate.
Aspin says he doesn’t want to pre-judge the outcome of the future debate and doesn’t know what the public can expect at this point.
That includes the process of going through another ARC (Accommodations Review Committee) process where the public is engaged to help the board arrive at a decision.
“If there was any kind of information that would trigger the need for a new ARC process, that could be a possibility, I don’t know,” Aspin said.
“We have to get the information from the in-camera meetings in front of us and then make that decision.”
Aspin doesn’t personally believe there’s a need for another ARC process but says the trustees are not going to presuppose anything.
But he does point out with student enrolment dropping, the need for people and facilities is diminishing.
Asked about money being spent this year on Chippewa Secondary School, Aspin says that money is being spent on asbestos work, work he says that needs to be done to keep students and staff safe.
