Bet on future

Emo residents are determined Donald Young School won’t suffer the same fate as Alexander MacKenzie, Sixth Street, and Huffman here in Fort Frances.
That certainly was the message delivered loud and clear by the 80 people who turned out last Wednesday night for the fourth and final public consultation by the Pupil Accommodation Review committee looking into what to do with DYS.
The Rainy River District School Board basically has four options, although none are particularly palatable. Renovating the existing building is one choice, however, that seems unlikely given DYS was deemed “prohibitive to repair” by the province back in 2003—even though many are questioning the estimated $5.6 million price tag.
Closing DYS, and sending its students to either Crossroads in Devlin or Sturgeon Creek in Barwick, is another option—but the ensuing backlash from Emo likely rules that out.
Consolidating two or more district schools is a third option, although the board is unlikely to abandon Crossroads given it is relatively new. That leaves a possible consolidation of DYS and Sturgeon Creek, but you can bet Chapple and area residents would fight equally hard to preserve their school.
The other choice is to build a new school in Emo to house current DYS students, but keeping three schools within a roughly 30-km radius (not counting the Sturgeon Creek Alternate Program) probably is the least cost-efficient option.
Obviously, the school board has a lot of factors to weigh. Perhaps most important, though is keeping its eye on the future. Closing or consolidating schools may be the best option financially, but it doesn’t take into consideration economic growth for the district.
If anything, it signals throwing in the towel that things will ever turn around—and what kind of message is that?
As well, once a school is gone, it’s very difficult to resurrect down the road. That’s a lesson Fort Frances may learn the hard way some day.