Numbers don’t add up on Simcoe school closure, parents say

Some parents at a Simcoe elementary school think staff and trustees at the Grand Erie District School Board need to drop by a Grade 1 class for remedial math lessons.

Parent council members at West Lynn Public School say a plan to close their school in September 2025 is based on outdated demographic data and should be scrapped.

The current plan is to add a four-classroom addition and extensively renovate Elgin Avenue Public School — a downtown school steps from Norfolk General Hospital — and close West Lynn, located just under three kilometres away near the south end of town.

All students from both schools would study at West Lynn next year before moving to the remodelled Elgin building to start the 2025-26 school year.

The strategy dates to 2016, when Grand Erie’s Long-Term Accommodation Plan (LTAP) predicted enrolment at West Lynn and Elgin would continue to decline — a problem for the school board, since Ontario schools are funded per student.

But the way West Lynn parents Cordie Jagt and Stacey Murray have crunched the numbers, Simcoe will need another school in the near future to accommodate an influx of kids that has already begun.

“They want to close our school based on an outdated study which we feel has incorrect information in it,” said Murray, who has one child in Grade 1 and another starting kindergarten in the fall.

“The data seems to suggest that both Elgin and West Lynn should remain open, with renovations, in order to address the forecasted growth,” added Jagt, a mother of three.

While making a deputation to the school board in January, Jagt pointed out there are already more students at West Lynn than the projection for 2025 used by the board eight years ago.

Enrolment was at 256 students as of Oct. 31 and jumped to 265 by February — an increase of almost half a class, and well above the 233 students forecast in the board’s long-term accommodation plan.

New developments springing up in West Lynn’s catchment area should bring in even more kids, Murray noted.

“This decision was made eight years and before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has significantly altered the growth in families who are moving to Norfolk County,” said Jagt, whose family was part of the pandemic-inspired urban exodus to Norfolk in search of greener pastures and cheaper housing.

With a capacity of 337, it would not take many more students to push enrolment at West Lynn into the 80 to 120 per cent range sought by the province.

But the picture at Elgin is less promising, with 271 students in a building that could fit 469 — well short of the provincial occupancy target.

With Elgin and West Lynn both currently under capacity, “the combining of these schools remains supported by the Grand Erie’s LTAP,” GEDSB communications manager Dave Smouter said in an email to The Spectator.

Regarding the recent enrolment spike at West Lynn, Smouter said the board considers “existing student populations, anticipated incoming kindergarten classes, school transiency (move ins/outs), and anticipated growth from new residential units” when developing “reasonable forward-looking assumptions.”

“For any given time period or specific school, reality can fall below, meet, or exceed the assumptions,” Smouter said.

The renovated Elgin would have 24 full-sized classrooms, while the current need between the two schools is 23.

“So there’s no room for growth,” Murray said, noting the board’s projections have the combined Elgin at capacity by 2033.

But the school could fill even sooner, Jagt told trustees, because the housing projections underpinning Grand Erie's LTAP are “understated.”

According to a 2021 housing growth forecast prepared by Watson and Associates Economists, Norfolk is expected to add 9,665 new housing units by 2051, with 2,957 in Simcoe.

That growth would bring 549 new elementary school-aged students to Simcoe.

But the LTAP predicts Simcoe will only add 787 new homes over that same time, translating to 146 new elementary students.

This prediction is based on residential units in the development approval process as of December 2021, while for Haldimand and Brant, the board uses housing growth forecasts, which are larger.

Were board staff to be consistent and do the math based on Norfolk’s housing growth forecast, not only would it be unwise to close an existing school in Simcoe, but a new one will be needed to handle the expected growth, Jagt said.

“I’m not sure if Norfolk’s numbers were an honest mistake or intentional to match the board’s narrative (that West Lynn should close), but the reported data is not a true representation of Norfolk,” Murray told The Spectator.

Superintendent Rafal Wyszynski, who oversees Grand Erie's capital projects, facilities and accommodation plans, pledged to review the data Jagt and Murray provided and update the enrolment forecasts if warranted.

But Smouter defended the board’s projections, saying Norfolk’s 2018 development charges background study “is a stronger indicator of future housing requirements, and its data is more actionable” than the community growth study Jagt cited.

“We expect the vast majority of the increased long-range housing forecast units will take place beyond a ten-year horizon,” Smouter said, adding the renovated Elgin “will be able to accommodate all students for the short to medium term.”

A sign on the Elgin lawn touts the provincial investment in expanding the 76-year-old school by 17,000 square feet through a four-classroom addition — including two kindergarten rooms — next to a child-care and EarlyON centre, along with a new accessible entrance and elevator and extensive indoor upgrades.

However, it is unclear whether the school board can afford to remodel Elgin and meet the projected 14-month timeline.

The board has $8.7 million on hand for the project, including $6.2 million earmarked by the province in 2017.

But the latest estimate, in November 2023, pegs the cost at anywhere from $13.3 to $15 million.

The board will apply to the province for more capital funding and is prepared to kick in more money to cover the shortfall “if required,” Smouter said, but he did not specify how much.

The renovated Elgin will be in poor condition within two years of opening, according to the school board’s own internal metrics. Despite this, Wyszynski told trustees the province has allocated funds to expand Elgin and add child-care spaces, and that remains the board’s focus.

“That’s a lot of our taxpayer dollars, and I feel like the money they’re spending is short-sighted and not really going to fulfil the needs of the future,” Murray told The Spectator.

“After a year or two, we don’t want to all be at Elgin in a school that’s falling apart and crammed.”

The Elgin building does need renovations “even if just their students stay there,” Jagt added.

“So them coming to our school next year, we have no issue with. It’s that year after.”

Ideally, Wyszynski said, new schools should be built within new developments to reduce bussing costs rather than “renovating and re-renovating a school that is decades old.”

“Once we do our renovations,” the superintendent said, “we’ll be able to take a look at what enrolment has done to the utilization of both schools … so that if we do need the West Lynn site in the future, we keep it.”

Smouter did not clarify whether the superintendent meant keeping West Lynn — which dates to 1953 — open with students inside or as a surplus empty building.

Trustees have changed tack several times over what to do with the two aging schools since they ignored staff's 2016 recommendation to renovate West Lynn and close Elgin, instead voting to keep the downtown school open to cater to lower-income families living nearby.

That decision came just before Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government declared a provincewide moratorium on school closures in 2017 expressly to keep school boards from merging schools with low enrolment.

In an interview with The Spectator, veteran trustee Rita Collver said the “restraints” of the provincial funding leave trustees little choice but to stick to the plan made eight years ago.

Simcoe trustee Liz Whiton did not respond to an interview request, while fellow Simcoe representative Elaine Simpson directed questions to board chair Susan Gibson.

Gibson forwarded a statement which said in part that the “modernization” of Elgin “will support new opportunities for learning and belonging at the school.”

The board’s plan to close West Lynn in September 2025 was not made clear to families at both schools until an email in late January.

A committee comprised of students, staff and parents from both schools has since met three times to plan “transition activities” like a combined school open house and games days.

West Lynn and Elgin students will study and play side by side as “one student body” next year, while portables will be brought in to ensure the merged school adheres to ministry class-size limits.

The Grand Erie board touts the advantages of bigger schools in terms of funding for specialized programs and adequate staffing. But Jagt says West Lynn’s small size is its strength.

“It’s the community feel. Everybody knows everybody,” she said of a school where kids who are not elite athletes or gifted stage performers can still make the team or star in the school play.

Since the review process has already gone on this long, Murray said trustees should look at the latest numbers and revisit their decision yet again.

“Our fight isn’t about which school should remain open and which one should close anymore,” she said.

“It’s that both schools are needed.”

J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator