St. Mary's school officially closed

With none of the drama that normally surrounds accommodation review processes, Sudbury Catholic District School Board trustees voted at their May 21 meeting to shutter one of the board's schools.

The 29 students at St. Mary Catholic Elementary School, a junior kindergarten to Grade 6 school in Capreol, were actually transferred to St. Anne Catholic Elementary School in nearby Hanmer last fall, after a consensus was reached with most of their parents about the move.

But under provincial government rules, the school board was still required to go through the accommodation review process, which includes public consultation. Sudbury Catholic held several meetings about the topic, but very few parents and community members showed up.

“I guess you could say it's never good to close a school,” said the school board's chair, Jody Cameron.

“We always hope a school would prosper in a community that it's in.

“However, with declining enrolment, and not having the enrolment to make that school sustainable, and the fact that we have St. Anne's school within a 15-minute bus ride from Capreol, it was the best decision for the board at this time.”

For the most part, the parents of St. Mary students didn't have any complaints about the transfer to St. Anne, he said.

A few did opt to instead send their children to C.R. Judd Public School, the elementary school in Capreol run by the Rainbow District School Board. That school has an enrolment of about 175 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 8.

When a school is largely empty, it's problematic for school boards, Cameron said.
“If you have this much space per pupil that's not utilized, they penalize you to a certain degree from a funding perspective,” he said.

“Surplus space is not good, mostly from the budgetary side, when the ministry looks at it ... So we have to make sure that we manage our space. If space isn't being utilized, we should be looking at ways to mitigate that excess space.”

While there are no longer any students attending the school, Cameron said there's still a daycare operating there.

He said the board is in discussions with the daycare operator to help it find another space. Cameron said he's heard the daycare is looking at relocating to C.R. Judd.

Closing St. Mary's saves Sudbury Catholic money when it comes to what it would cost to upkeep the building, as well as hire staff such as custodians, Cameron said.

As for what happened to the St. Mary's teachers, he said they were transferred to other schools run by the board.

“The ultimate goal is to sell the property,” Cameron said. “Any funds that we get from the sale of the property goes into our capital reserves, to be used for other capital projects that come up.”