After community outcry, Lady Evelyn School gets a lifeline

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has backed down on its wind-down plan, though the neighbourhood school’s long-term future remains uncertain.

 

JOHN DANCE

The Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) has reversed its decision to wind down Lady Evelyn School but the future of Old Ottawa East’s only English-language public school remains unclear.

With some relief, parents of Lady Evelyn School (LES) students and many others in Old Ottawa East (OOE) and elsewhere learned in early March that the school will accept junior kindergarten students for the coming academic year.   

Last December, the OCDSB had announced the gradual winding down of LES with no new students being admitted in future years.

“The [kindergarten] program will follow a regular 50/50 model (full-day, fully bilingual program with 50 percent English instruction and 50 percent French instruction), operating in accordance with existing Alternative school boundaries,” the OCDSB responded to questions from The Mainstreeter.

OCDSB reversed its December decision after more than 500 local residents petitioned against the LES closure and many others protested against the proposed shutdown of the three other “alternative” schools in Ottawa.

But there remains considerable uncertainty for parents. To date, there has been no OCDSB confirmation of whether LES will have a French immersion program going forward, which means some families may decide not to enrol their children at the school. Without confirmation from the Board, a cohort of kindergarten kids will likely be moving on to other community schools that offer “early French immersion,” which, in such case, would leave LES in the same severely under-enrolled situation as at present and leave other nearby schools in their current over-capacity state.

In terms of future planning, the OCDSB “is undertaking localized planning and accommodation studies in the areas where our four alternative schools are located,” an OCDSB email noted. “We will confirm the specific program model, grade structure, and final boundaries for these four schools following comprehensive accommodation reviews in the coming 24 months.”

“While this work is underway, Lady Evelyn will remain fully operational to support currently enrolled students. Future programming options for the site will be evaluated in the coming years,” the Board concluded.

Although the OCDSB did not provide The Mainstreeter with information on how many junior kindergarten students have been registered for LES this fall, some parents have learned that the number of registrants is readily increasing and very close to replacing the number of senior kindergarten students going into grade 1 next year at LES.”

Amongst others, Capital Ward Councillor Shawn Menard pushed back on the December student embargo announcement that would have led to an eventual shutdown of the modernized LES. 

Menard, a former school trustee, wrote to OCDSB: “Learning that new enrollments at Lady Evelyn Alternative School have been prohibited in the short term has been quite distressing to me and to our community. Old Ottawa East is a dynamic and growing community, with major residential development projects coming to Greystone, Hawthorne Avenue and Main Street. Lady Evelyn has served this community for three decades and it maintains the potential to be a vibrant community school. As the neighbourhood grows, it would be disheartening to see it lose this important asset.”

“I need to ask, what is the Board’s medium to long term intention for Lady Evelyn?” Menard wrote. “This school is located in a perfect spot with excellent community support and activities in a growing area (Old Ottawa East has nearly doubled in population over the last 15 years).”

     OCDSB’s original closure plan was forged in the context of the Board’s decision to phase out its alternative school program which, for central Ottawa students, was offered at LES.

Most parents of students at LES grudgingly or otherwise accepted the end of the alternative program, but they fought adamantly for retention of the school for the same programs offered elsewhere by the Board in other “neighbourhood” schools across the city.

For two months, The Mainstreeter has attempted to obtain OCDSB student data for those living in OOE and attending OCDSB elementary schools in order to understand the potential of LES to serve as a neighbourhood school, but thus far the Board has not provided the data.