Petition to Save Kingston Schools Being Presented to Ontario Legislature

Published on: 2014/02/07 - in Featured Releases

Peter Tabuns, Education Critic for the NDP, will present the Legislative Petition on the Kingston schools issue to the Ontario Legislature when it resumes later this month.

The petition calls for the Ontario government to refuse funds to build a new school and instead endorse ‘Plan B’ in which the Limestone District School Board does not shutter any of Kingston’s schools but instead preserves Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute (KCVI) and retains Queen Elizabeth Collegiate Institute (QECVI) as an alternative education centre.

MPP Tabuns said he would be ‘honoured’ to present the petition on behalf of supporters of Kingston’s city schools. The petition has over 2,300 names and is signed by people from across Ontario, from Kingston to Timmins to Toronto.

Peter Tabuns, Education Critic for the NDP

Legislative petitions are required to meet stringent formal requirements: they must be worded in a certain way and they must be on paper, physically signed, with addresses.

Supporters of Kingston’s city high schools have been gathering names, knocking on doors, mailing out copies, and addressing various community meetings, for several weeks.

Save Kingston City Schools supporters are meeting with Kingston and the Islands NDP candidate Mary Rita Holland to present her with the petition which will be sent to Toronto next week.

“As a committed Kingstonian and the mother of a child in public school, I am deeply troubled by the contentious decision of the Limestone District School Board to pursue a short-sighted, fiscally-driven policy of school closure in central Kingston,” said Ms. Holland.

The petition reads:

WHEREAS the Limestone District School Board (LDSB) has decided, in the face of overwhelming opposition from the residents of Kingston, to request that the Ministry of Education provide funds to build a new school and close Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute (KCVI) and Queen Elizabeth Vocational Institute (QECVI); and

WHEREAS KCVI is the most academically successful in the Limestone Board; is full and generates funds for the Board; has a socio-economically diverse student body; enjoys a unique location adjacent to Queen’s that enhances learning opportunities for students; is the oldest public high school in Ontario, significant to the history of the city, the province and the nation and is housed in a distinctive, heritage building; is the only downtown high school and plays a crucial role in the vitality of Kingston; and

WHEREAS the LDSB named the current QECVI site as the likely location for a new high school and has no viable alternatives, which is a site only 1.5 km from Regiopolis-Notre-Dame, a thriving, academically successful Catholic high school that serves the same community; and therefore the LDSB is proposing that two large high schools be located in close proximity in the north end and none in downtown Kingston, a distribution of schools that will lead to increased bussing, attendant pollution, and the decline of Kingston’s urban businesses and neighbourhoods; and

WHEREAS in the event funds are not available for a new school, the LDSB’s second option preserves KCVI in downtown Kingston and repurposes QECVI as an alternative education centre, a proposal that has enormous public support; enables a more rational distribution of schools for the urban environment of central Kingston; best provides for the needs of all affected students; retains a jewel in Kingston’s urban heritage; avoids the enormous expenditures entailed by new construction, and therefore costs Ontario taxpayers less and is in every way more environmentally, fiscally and socially responsible;

We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to REFUSE the Limestone District School Board’s request for funds to build a new high school in the City of Kingston.

Meanwhile, the change.org petition initiated by KCVI graduate Chris Albinson last week to save Kingston Collegiate continues to collect names, surpassing 2,000 in just a few days.

“There is overwhelming opposition to the province spending money it doesn’t have on a school no one wants, a plan that would do irreparable harm to school communities and the city,” say Art Cockfield and Christine Sypnowich, who collected the petitions. “We hope the government of Ontario is listening.”

More details about the effort to save KCVI – and other local schools – can be found at soskcvi.ca and savekingstoncityschools.com.

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Release source: soskcvi | Photos: KCVI – Andrew MacKinnon (cc) | Peter Tabuns – petertabuns.ca