Peel Board okays school closures - Lyndwood School Cover-up - Mississauga News

Peel District School board trustees have passed a staff report that recommends building a brand new elementary school in the heart of Lakeview and shutting down three others facing declining enrollment.

The new Kindergarten to Grade 5 school will replace the existing Lyndwood school at 498 Hartsdale Ave., and will house students from Byngmount Beach, Lyndwood and Neil C. Matheson. It is scheduled to open in 2010. Grades 6-8 from Byngmount and Lynwood will go to Allan A. Martin Sr. P.S.
Peel trustees unanimously approved the recommendations tonight at a meeting of the school board at the HJA Brown Education Centre.

Board chair Janet McDougald said this was the first such consolidation process for the Peel board. She said the changing demographics of the population in the southern area of the city has resulted in a decline in school enrolments.

“We've not closed a school in 25 years,” McDougald said. “You must appreciate the fact that these schools are older and would be expensive to renovate. Cost-wise, we believe, the better investment would be a brand new school.”

The decision to build a new school comes in the wake of an Accommodation Review Committee's (ARC) process that reviewed four schools from Lakeview for potential consolidation because of declining enrolments.

Byngmount Beach was selected because its enrolment is at 37 per cent capacity — the lowest in the Peel board. Enrolments at Lyndwood and Neil C. Matheson also are below capacity and expected to decline further in the next decade. Allan A. Martin was identified because it is the middle school for Neil C. Matheson and is located near Byngmount Beach and Lyndwood schools.

Parents and ratepayers groups who attended last night's meeting expressed their displeasure over the fact that the ARC did not include representatives from the community. They said ARC didn't do a good enough job of informing the community or seeking input from it; had there been adequate community representation, the outcome would have been different, they said.

Jim Tovey, president of Lakeview Ratepayers' Association, told the trustees that a "multi-faceted and vibrant community" in the former Lakeview Generating Station site will transform the area. He asked the school board not to sell Byngmount Beach for five years because there will be a demand for a school then.

“If Byngmount closes, there won't be a public school in Port Credit,” Tovey said. “And I promise you, in five years, we will help you build the cleanest, greenest and most creative school ...”

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