THUNDER BAY -- Three public school closures in Thunder Bay's south side have been delayed an entire year as the Ministry of Education pushed its funding deadline forward.
The Lakehead District School Board voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend its South Side Renewal Plan timeline, which was to have closed Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute at the end of this school year and seen its students transferred to Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute by September 2017.
The revised timeline pushes that move back to the fall of 2018 while students from Agnew H. Johnston Public School and Edgewater Park Public will have to wait another year for a new elementary school to be constructed on the Churchill site.
Those elementary schools are now scheduled to close in September 2019.
Board superintendent of business David Wright said the ministry moved its school consolidation capital deadline from October 2016 to January 2017, meaning provincial approval for the Lakehead board's projects won't likely come until March or April.
Wright recalled trustees expressing concerns about cutting Westgate renovations and the new school's construction close already, but the deadline change made the tight timeline snap.
"It was a tight timeline. It was an aggressive timeline. We knew that from the beginning," Wright said.
"Because of that, any change to the funding timing really puts it outside of the realm of possibility that project will be completed for September 2017."
Lakehead board student trustee and Churchill student Robyn Sulkko broke into tears after Wright's announcement, giving a four-minute unscripted speech in which she called the delay "emotionally draining" on both the Churchill and Westgate student bodies.
Sulkko said the spirit of everything happening at Churchill this fall has been wrapped in closure, highlighted by Grade 9 students sobbing and refusing to leave the school's last-ever football game.
"There has been an atmosphere at Churchill that has changed the way we do everything because it's the last time," Sulkko said.
"There has been this lingering feeling and animosity between Westgate and Churchill -- and excitement. I don't want this to come across as a bad thing. There's so much excitement about the opportunity and now it's going to be another year. There's going to be another last football team."
Board director Ian MacRae was principal of Westgate when its students welcomed those from closing Fort William Collegiate Institute (FWCI) in 2005. He apologized to Sulkko.
"I can understand very well the emotions you're feeling. It will be an exciting school. It will be very exciting. It will be better," he said.
"On behalf of a lot of people I'm very sorry, especially in your position. But you'll get through it and so will they. If I've learned one thing it's how resilient students are. Don't ever give up your beliefs."
Wright confirmed the board will accommodate students zoned for Churchill who wish to enter Grade 9 at Westgate to avoid transfer the following year.
The delay will have financial implications on the board's budget as well with a $795,000 operating deficit on the city's south side as well as over $1.5 million on the north side.
In October, the board voted down administration's plan to close Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute in October and Wright is eager to begin the budget process early in January.
"We're still facing challenges. We knew we were in it for a couple of years even with this renewal plan," he said.
"We were just hoping there would be a more expedient light at the end of the tunnel."
