While Wembley Public School in downtown Sudbury has sat quietly waiting to hear if it will stay or go, a small group of parents is going to bat for the 100-year-old, red brick school.
Three sets of parents – Kirk and Susan Dopson, Roger and Kelly Soucy and Doug and Sharon Nadorozny – have been working behind the scenes to get answers to the questions they say they aren’t getting from an accommodation review committee.
The committee is made up of the school principal, a teacher, the school superintendent, a business leader, a municipal employee and two members of the parent council. Its job is to ensure students have access to the best programming possible in quality school facilities. Wembley has been classified as prohibitive to repair by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry said the school needs $2.4 million in repairs but the board only has $3 million to repair all of its 48 schools.
“We think the process is tainted,” Kirk said. “If the process is flawed, maybe Wembley doesn’t need to close.”
Kirk and his colleagues will bring an expert on building structure – a former Wembley student – to the fourth and final public meeting in the review process on Monday, June 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the school.
One option being considered, Kirk said, is for Wembley’s students to transfer to Princess Anne Public School, where a second floor will be added. But when the parents asked about the condition of that school, they didn’t get an answer. “Are we going to transfer students to another school that needs repair?” Kirk asked.
He said the parents aren’t flat out against closing the school but “the reasoning they’re giving us doesn’t hold water.”
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