The start of school looked a lot different for many students in the town of Parry Sound, Ont., when they found out weeks before the start of classes that there was no actual school to attend.
All high school students in the community have been forced to do online classes with construction of the area’s new kindergarten-to-Grade 12 school delayed.
The delays in construction have prompted outrage from students and parents as the school board released a last-minute contingency plan a just week before the start of school.
“It’s really frustrating and it’s caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Grade 12 is a really important year, especially the first semester, for Grade 12 students who are applying for post-secondary education. A lot of students with special needs and behavioural situations are not receiving support or any information at this point,” says Amy Black.
Black is one of the organizers of the online Facebook group Parents for Parry Sound, which was started on Aug. 11 after the Near North District School Board announced the new school would not be ready in time for the start of school.
The plan, which was outlined in an online statement, saw students in kindergarten to Grade 6 sent to attend McDougall Public School and all Grade 7 and Grade 8 students attending the previously-closed Nobel Public School site.
But all high school students are beginning the school year remotely, with the school board saying the goal is to move into the old Parry Sound High School which was partially demolished.
While McDougall P.S. was set to remain open until the end of 2025 to help with the transition of students into the new building before being sold, both Nobel P.S. and the high school were officially closed down at the end of last school year.
Black says she and other parents have concerns over the safety of Nobel school, given it was supposed to be permanently closed the year before and was deemed to be in a huge state of disrepair. She says after multiple attempts to contact the school board for answers, they have still not heard back.
She says not all students have received the required tech support to do online learning, with private donors stepping up to buy laptops and local businesses opening their doors to give teens access to Wi-Fi.
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She says people have also stepped up to offer tutoring for students struggling with online learning.
“All of it was avoidable, and unfortunately, the students are the ones suffering right now. The fact that even an apology has not been issued to these kids from the school board, the ministry, or anybody is really sad,” Black says.
Shawna Woods is a mother of three high schoolers and said in an email on Wednesday that the situation has been an “absolute disaster for us and today was just the first day.”
She said they were lucky to receive three laptops from an anonymous donor because they have not heard back from the school board on their request for devices.
“My boys were super excited to be able to participate on sports teams and take part in tech classes, neither of which can possibly happen while online. It’s a shame that this is what their first year of high school looks like,” Wood wrote.
She said she spent the first day of school helping her three children on and off video calls try to navigate their school schedule and find all their Team meetings for classes.
Woods says the impact of having to be on screens all day is hard for all her children, especially after several years in the pandemic.
“As for my daughter, the mental toll this is taking is going to be hard to bounce back from. She never completely came back around mentally after the COVID lockdowns and isolation but being in school, attending classes with her friends, was the highlight of her days and helped bring her smile back,” Woods says.
“Now we are back to the same sort of situation, and her mental health is deteriorating again.”
Woods says the lack of answers from the school board over the situation is completely unacceptable.
For Black, the frustrating thing is that she feels this whole situation could have been avoided.
“What we really don’t understand — and still have no answers on — is why did they start demolishing the existing school when they knew before school was even let out last year that that building was not going to be ready?”
Global News reached out to the school board to ask about the delays, but the board declined to comment, referring to their previous releases announcing the delay.
Parry Sound Mayor Jamie McGarvey says the delay in the new school is a major disappointment, given that in May, education officials told them the school would be finished on time.
He says right now city staff are working with the school board and a construction company to see if the old high school could be used in the interim, but it’s not an easy task.
“There was asbestos abatement being done, there was demolition being done, so we need to make sure that the building is safe and from a health and safety standpoint that their quality is good, that structurally the building is fine,” McGarvey said.
He says work is ongoing to see that it is safe to allow high school students back on a temporary basis, but he cannot say how soon that will be.
“The building code says that occupancy can’t be had until all the boxes are checked, and we have to make sure that it’s going to be safe for administration, staff, students, and any parents or volunteers that come into the school,” the mayor said.
Both Parents for Parry Sound and the mayor have asked the Ministry of Education for an investigation into the administration of the Near North District School Board, given how poorly they say the situation has been handled. McGarvey said the Minister of Education agreed to open an investigation.
“Something is seriously wrong,” he says.
“Nothing seems to have gone right, and I think we need to get to the bottom of it because those students are our future, and we want to make sure they can get the best possible education that they can, so that they feel good about what they’re doing, and the parents feel good about it, and right now there’s not a good feeling at all.”
