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Recognizing the significant benefits of local schooling to students and their communities, Friends of NDSS is committed to ensuring all Niagara-on-the-Lake children and youth can receive a continuum of quality education within their own municipality.
Niagara-on-the-Lake is home to 887 elementary and 718 secondary-school age students. 400 is considered an optimal number to sustain a high school.
Less than 40% of available area students attend their area school, Niagara District Secondary. Those who do attend, however, enjoy an amazing amount of success. In 2007, over half achieved honour role status; 65% went onto post-secondary education that year, and numerous others waited until the following year. In total, almost 90% went on to post-secondary education.
Why? Because community- based education gives better results. The consensus in school research literature is that attendance is better, graduation rates are higher, teachers and parents are more satisfied, and students' sense of well-being soars.
Friends of NDSS are concerned that the DSBN has set up our municipality's only high school, Niagara District Secondary School, for closure. Its neglect of our building, combined with easy access to alternate school placements, have magnified the effects of natural enrolment associated with shifting demographics all over North America.
Niagara-on-the-Lake students, parents and ratepayers expect the DSBN to be accountable for its past actions and bring NDSS back up to par, allowing it to compete fairly for its own area students. After all, schools are funded based on the number of students who attend.
If closure of NDSS is considered, it would mean busing all 718 students to other municipalities every day. The emissions, youth health impacts, and cost associated would be staggering. Not to mention the quality of life for students forced to spend ten hours each week (51 8-hour school days each term) on buses, cut off from their community and unable to participate in after-school activities.
Gutting NOTL of a high school would mean gutting the municipality of its youth and its ability to attract and retain families. The impact on property values, small businesses, and community identity and cohesion needs to be weighed seriously.
Friends of NDSS calls on NOTL municipal leaders to pay attention to seriousness of this decision for the future of our community. We call on Councilors to attend DSBN delegations, meet one-to-one with DSBN Trustees, and ensure the DSBN knows that closing our high school is not a feasible option from an educational, economic, environmental or social standpoint.
We call upon our elected DSBN Trustees to make creative, fiscally responsible and future-minded measures to preserve and enhance quality JK-12 education throughout Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Our volunteer base is growing daily as citizens have found a voice and renewed sense of hope for a revitalized high school in our community.
You too can make a difference. Share your personal vision for NDSS, give a charitable donation to support our campaign, or volunteer your time and expertise.
Friends of NDSS has successfully advocated for local students for many years. We hope you will join us.
Has the DSBN Created Declining Enrollment?
Declining enrollment at Niagara District Secondary School (NDSS) has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Demographic changes (i.e. fewer teenagers living within the municipality) combined with a number of District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) decisions have combined to create this situation:
1. The DSBN put NDSS under threat of closure in 1999, and public perception of that threat has endured since that time. Due to the present accommodation review, there is now a renewed and immediate threat preventing students from enrolling at NDSS. Students do not want to enter a high school that might close before they graduate. As a result, they enroll in a different high school.
2. Lack of revitalization and general upkeep of the physical plant makes other schools more attractive. (Just as we prefer to live in nice houses, we prefer to attend nice schools, given the choice)
3. The DSNB offers a publicly funded Christian high school alternative to NDSS, including free courtesy bussing for students from NOTL (whereas students from other municipalities must pay). This alternative results in the transfer of up to 40% of NOTL’s pool of secondary school students to St. Catharines.
Combined, these factors have created lower core enrollment at NDSS, which has lead to lower funding (since funding is allocated by number of students), which has led to fewer course offerings, which has led to lower enrollment, and the cycle continues
2008 Accommodation Review - Background
The District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) initiated a pupil accommodation review for Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) in October 2007.
The DSBN appointed an Accommodation Review Committee (ARC). The ARC was comprised of nine representatives from NOTL elementary schools, three representatives from NOTL’s secondary school and two community representatives at large. The DSBN Superintendent of Schools chaired the meetings.
Under the Ontario Ministry of Education pupil accommodation review guidelines, the purpose of an ARC is to ensure full involvement of an informed local community when a local school board is making decisions about a school or group of schools.
The DSBN’s goal in establishing the ARC was to generate community recommendations on how best to accommodate local education requirements. The group’s final meeting was held March 5, 2008.
The DSBN instructed ARC members to make recommendations about all elementary and secondary schools in NOTL, based on “value to the student” and without regard to cost of implementation of such recommendations. At the same time, the cost-per-student of operating NDSS has caused the DSBN to consider closing the school both in past and presently.
The NOTL community at large has expressed, based on the School Valuation Framework (value to the student, community and local economy), support for secondary education within NOTL. The ARC has adopted and will bring forward to the DSBN a formal recommendation that “in principle, NOTL requires a secondary school.”
However, no clear vision of the secondary school has been put forward, and no business case supporting that vision has been made. As a result, the risk inherent is that the DSBN will dismiss the recommendation as not being feasible based on current enrollment projections and funding formulas. The outcome could be that NOTL’s only high school is closed and all secondary students are bussed into St. Catharines to receive education.
ARC chair and DSBN superintendent of schools Linda Kartasinski was scheduled to submit a final ARC report to members for feedback March 12, 2008. Upon finalization, the ARC report will be submitted to DSBN Trustees, along with a separate report from DSBN senior administration.
Trustees are scheduled to make final decisions in May 2008.
