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Village mayor fights to give school on the chopping block a 2nd act

Tide Head School's days appear to be numbered. The tiny K-5 school in northern New Brunswick is expected to close this year, pending ministerial approval, after a unanimous district educational council vote in January.

It's always been a small community school, but enrolment plummeted in the past four years. Eight students attend Tide Head today.

Tide Head Mayor Randy Hunter knows it's a fait accompli.

The students will be reassigned in September to a school in Campbellton, about nine kilometres west, but Hunter is pushing to give the building a second act and raising questions about what should be done with closed schools in small or rural municipalities.

Wants building used

The mayor doesn't want Tide Head School to meet the same fate as the shuttered school in neighbouring Atholville. The former École Versant-Nord sits empty on prime property in the heart of the community.

"I would like to see the building used," Hunter said.

"We don't want that school sitting there, grass growing around it, not being maintained, becoming an eyesore for our municipality."

Anglophone School District South and the district education council reserved comment on the matter as they await Education Minister Dominic Cardy's decision. Under Policy 409, the guiding document to review and close schools, the minister must sign off on an education council's recommendation.

Planning to merge

The school was marked for closure as part of a plan to merge three regional schools into a new K-8 school in Campbellton. That project has since been delayed by the Progressive Conservative government.

Tide Head School had more than 100 students at its peak, but in the past decade enrolment hovered in the 40s before dropping to single digits last year. The school is staffed by the equivalent of 1½ full-time teachers and 3½ non-teaching employees.

Colin McPhail/CBC
Colin McPhail/CBC

Once closed, ownership of the school shifts to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, which then can offer it to other provincial departments or sell it to a non-profit organization or another government. Failing that, it could be sold publicly.

Losing the school would be a blow to the village, said Hunter, who wants Policy 409 to do a better job weighing the impact that closing a school has on the small or rural community it serves.

Repurposing the building, land

Hunter, a former educator now in his third term as mayor, offered suggestions to keep the building in use, including establishing an autism resource centre for the school district or moving the local alternative learning centre from its rented location in Campbellton to a permanent home in Tide Head.

"The building is not falling down," Hunter said. "Does it need tender love and care? Of course it does, like any building. But besides that it's fine."

Colin McPhail/CBC
Colin McPhail/CBC

Hunter said the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development hasn't responded to his proposals, but he said the government offered to hand over the building and the property to the municipality.

But that isn't ideal, he said. The village would lose out on tax revenue and be faced with either demolishing or renovating the building — costs the municipality can't afford, he said.

If the province knocked down the building, the village could then sell the property to be developed, Hunter said.

Hoping for new people

Tide Head has always been a suburb of sorts to Campbellton, but the village is becoming increasingly residential after several businesses closed.

The population dipped below 1,000 in the last census, and Hunter is keen on attracting people and economic development.

Repurposing Tide Head School or the land that it's on would help buck the recent trend.

"We'd like to see any positive development within the municipality, from housing through to small businesses," he said.