Harrow High School to close, Western Secondary School to stay open

The Greater Essex County District School Board has voted to keep Western Secondary School open, and to close Harrow District High School.

The decision was made before a large crowd of town officials, parents and students at the St. Clair College Sportsplex Tuesday night.

Trustees heard five-minute presentations from eight delegates and several speakers from both schools before debating and voting on the matter.

The board then took a vote on recommendations that Harrow and Western high schools be declared surplus and closed after this school year.

The board voted five to four in favour of closing Harrow high school.

"The trustees have to look at the bigger picture for the school board and there's 15 secondary schools and about 51 elementary schools, and Harrow's population and enrolment has been going down," said Alan Halberstadt who chaired the meeting. "They say it's going to be addressed or it's going to start going up again, but we've been waiting for several years for that to happen, and it hasn't happened."

Statistics from last year showed that Harrow had a student population in October 2014 that was just 52.5 per cent of its capacity, while Western had more empty spaces than students enrolled.

Unanimous vote to keep Western open

The board also voted unanimously to keep Western Secondary School open.

"It's very touching what that school has done to turn lives around," said Halberstadt. "It's hard to at this point to say let's just close this down."

Western provides special, hands-on programming unique to the school. There are more than 300 students that attend the school, said Halberstadt.

"It's been the salvation for a lot of kids so I think that tugged at our heartstrings for sure," he said.

Halberstadt says it will cost $600,000 per year to keep Western high school open.