The Anglophone East District Education Council voted unanimously to close Hillcrest School and merge it with a new facility replacing Bessborough School.
Council member Norval McConnell moved the motion at last night’s meeting, adding while it was a difficult decision, the aging facility, shrinking enrollment and program opportunities made the choice necessary.
“Small has got benefits, I’m proof of that myself, so are my own kids, but you get so small that, then you have to be concerned with are you really giving kids the broad opportunity to be exposed to a number of different kids, different teachers, and that became a factor,” says McConnell.
He repeatedly said this was a very difficult decision, especially given his lifetime of connections to the school.
“I tried as hard as I could to take the emotion out of it, because if I based this decision purely on emotion I would not have made this decision,” says McConnell. “This had to be logic, I had to go through it, I had to be able to rationalize it in my own head.”
McConnell says Finance Minister Cathy Rogers has committed that any replacement school for the West End will remain in the area.
They are going to try to put the new proposed school within boundaries of Main Street, Millennium, Vaughan Harvey, and Wheeler Boulevards.
