NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese is urging Dalton McGuinty to stop the havoc that declining enrolment is wreaking on Ontario schools.

“There are two possible solutions to declining enrolment and concomitant funding problems – we can allow schools to close and programs to be cut, or we can consider schools as community hubs and change the way we fund them,” said Marchese.

According to a report – entitled Schools at the Centre – released today by People for Education, schools across Ontario have lost 90,000 students since 2002 and will lose as many as half a million in the next 15 years.

“Declining enrolment is a ticking time-bomb that threatens to eliminate schools and deeply affect communities,” said Marchese. “We should follow the path of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec by putting schools at the centre and thinking of new ways of keeping them alive.”

Schools at the Centre outlines an approach to schools that would turn them into community hubs, with integrated services and a variety of community uses.

“Because schools across Ontario have fewer students and less funding but not necessarily less costs, the loss of funding has resulted in a veritable crisis. Children are being left without ESL classes, special education programs and teacher-librarians. Every year parents are fundraising more and more for essential programs,” said Marchese.

“People for Education has issued a challenge to the McGuinty government to re-think schools and their importance. For the sake of our children, I hope the McGuinty government takes it on,” he added.