Extremely shortsighted economics and lax enrolment policies are forcing the District School of Board of Niagara Trustees to consider closing Niagara-on-the-Lake's only public high school.

Try as I might, I fail to understand it. The Trustees were elected to help ensure the paths to our children's future, right? So how can they consider sacrificing our students' quality of education and risk the stability of their communities?

Everything I've read to date regarding the fate of Niagara District Secondary School indicates a severe disconnection from the progressive planning directives recently adopted by our higher levels of government. Unlike the fringe hospital controversy a few years back, in this matter no one seems familiar with smart growth^{¶ § Δ} nor the vibrant, healthier communities it seeks to re-create.

Smart growth's principles exist today because back in 1991, a number of professionals and decision-makers were in agreement. The vitality and management of communities across North America were at risk. Communities were spreading out, getting too expensive to maintain. The needs for repairing and replacing aging buildings, roads, bridges and sewers were far exceeding monies available.

And those same public servants and civilians, finally acknowledging the importance of healthy ecosystems^{¶ §}, came to admit that faulty urban and rural planning^{¶ §} were taking their toll on the social, financial, and physical well being of communities^{¶ §} and residents.

So it was in '91, that, according to an American Planning Association web page, over 100 officials meeting in Yosemite National Park, composed and adopted twenty-one principles to "encourage the creation of communities where residents can find everything they need within walking distance of their homes." These Ahwahnee Principles for liveable communities then gave birth to a much broader charter created by various planners, developers, architects, and builders calling themselves, New Urbanists who envisioned the eventual restoration of integrated, diverse communities and neighbourhoods.

What finally emerged from their efforts, albeit in a more simplistic form, is now promoted as the ten principles of smart growth. In 2001, Regional Niagara's council formally adopted these principles, integrating them into recent policy amendments. The Ontario government soon followed our lead, embedding the intents of those principles into provincial policy amendments, Greenbelt and Places to Grow legislation. Our Canadian adoption of smart growth highlights its universality.

The very first Ahwahnee principle calls for "complete and integrated communities containing housing, shops, work places, schools, parks and civic facilities essential to the daily life of the residents."

The eleventh principle calls for "community designs that conserve resources and minimize waste." In light of these principles and other emerging issues expected to soon affect our societies, recommendations made to the Trustees by the Accommodation Review Committee are indeed timely. Current economic upheavals, rising oil prices^{¶ § Δ}, global initiatives to reduce fossil fuel dependencies and to mitigate carbon emissions^{¶ §}, and sustainability^{¶ § Δ} further validate retaining NDSS with some form of joint-use or co-location of community services as ARC recommended.

Such cost efficiencies provide strong social, fiscal, and environmental hedges against the hardships to come.

As part of my address to the Trustees on Tuesday, April 22nd, [See video Part I | Part I] I provided a copy of 'Local Governments and Schools: A Community-Oriented Approach'. That report was jointly produced this year by the International City/County Management Association and Smart Growth Network. It was filled with several case studies showing how the closure of small schools in particular tear at the social and economic fabrics of the community.

Schools are a key factor in attracting businesses and families to an area. Equally, their closures result in families moving out, lost businesses, reductions of property values, and consequentially, lost property tax revenues.

Closures undermine a community's cultural spirit and misdirect students' sense of belonging. Busing students from NOLT to as far away as St. Catharines, raises not just environmental issues, but issues surrounding what I will call, socio-educational. The more time students spend in transit, the less time and energy they will regularly have available for school related social, extracurricular, or community engagement activities, be those voluntary or job related.

The social and economic fabrics of NOLT, indeed all small communities across the continent, are under threat. The economic considerations DSBN uses for closing NDSS are clearly reflective of outdated, isolated 'silo' thinking we must all overcome.

Quite obviously the principles and objectives of smart growth were never even considered in the senior staffs' deliberations. If they had been, the Trustees' course of action might have included a plan for aligning with Regional and Provincial smart growth policies.

Instead of pursuing NDSS's closure they'd be exploring in far greater depth, the recommendations by the Accommodation Review Committee to share community resources so as to fulfill New Urbanism's intended objective "to avoid destructive competition for tax base by sharing revenues and resources more cooperatively."
 

Bernie Slepkov is a community activist, council-watcher and observer/participant of the Smarter Niagara steering committee. He is a member of the Standard's community editorial board.