OFA: What is the Real Cost of Closing Rural Schools? (2017)

By Rejean Pommainville, Director, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

There’s an alarming trend in rural Ontario. Schools are closing down and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) is very concerned about the impact these closures will have on our children, our families and our rural communities.

Part of OFA’s role in our work as an advocacy organization is to ensure farm families have a sustainable future and a viable business environment. Our work includes issues that directly affect farmers, and the well-being of our rural communities affects farm families and businesses.

Consider what Chapman’s Ice Cream company did in its community. Chapman’s realized that the proximity of good schools would be a major issue for attracting good employees. So Chapman’s contributed a million dollars to renovate the local school. It is admirable on their part to show such leadership and disheartening the Ontario government has yet to recognize the relationship between economic development and available social infrastructure including schools.

When you close a rural school, you close it off for the entire community, not just the students. In rural Ontario, schools play a much bigger role. They aren’t only a place for learning. School buildings are often used for community social events, local sports activities, and service and community groups.

Our rural communities are already suffering from the departure of our youth and families to opportunities in urban Ontario. We are working to reverse this trend. But to revitalize our communities we need economic development and social infrastructure to work lock-step.

We need job opportunities for young families and we need to support the families who move to these areas – and those families need a solid school system in their community.

It’s difficult to calculate the cost to rural communities when schools close. The OFA, as well as the Ontario Alliance Against School Closures, have called on the government for additional analysis of the social and economic impact of closing rural schools. We need to account for the full impact and “cost” on students and the entire community when a school closes.

These “costs” are hard to quantify but all have a significant impact on students, their parents and the rural community when a rural school closes.

OFA believes the review process used to determine which rural schools to close, is flawed.

We agree with the Ontario Alliance Against School Closures and Association of Ontario Municipalities that the Accommodation Review Committee process, and resulting guidelines, need to be redone. OFA also believes the funding formula for rural schools must be reviewed.

Yes, budgets are tight but in order to fully recognize the economic potential of rural Ontario and to bring families back, we need to have the supporting infrastructure available when they arrive.

Rural schools are central to the health and wellbeing of our rural communities. OFA will continue to work on behalf of our members to support strong communities.

Source: OFA