The Lambton Kent District School Board is in a holding pattern.
Superintendent of Education Gary Girardi said a moratorium on school consolidations, set in June by the Ford government, continues.
"We were advised that the provincial government would be reviewing the school closure process," said Girardi. "A date for [the release of] any revision of the process has not been set. So, we await the information from the ministry."
Girardi said the board expects the population at its schools to continue to decline over the next ten years, but at a slower rate than in the past.
"For example, the secondary population, we believe, will remain stable and the elementary population will decrease slightly over those next ten years," he said.
While the moratorium is in place, Girardi said they'll do their best to cope with the financial challenge of maintaining aging facilities.
"We continue to close classrooms in schools where we have spaces that are no longer in use. So we have about 200 closed classrooms across the board," he said. "On a school year, every classroom that we close saves us about $3,000 per year. It adds up to a savings that we then put back into our program dollars."
Girardi said they also use capital dollars to try and make the schools more efficient.
But, he said, with 8,000 empty pupil spaces and funding tied to the number of students currently attending, there is a shortfall in terms of the number of students they have and the number of spaces they need to take care of within the board.
