The concept of community hubs is certainly not new to Ontario and it has been put into practice in some school boards in the province, but not District School Board Ontario North East, at least not yet according to Chair Dough Shearer.
“The Ontario Ministry of Education has been working on a community hub program for two or three years,” said Shearer. “As the decline in enrolment continues across the province, it has opened school space in the community, that can be rented by community organizations.”
“It’s along haul and it involves multiple other ministers and multiple other partners,” Shearer added. “The goal being to find partners to utilize that unoccupied space in order that the school can be kept healthy and remain in the community.”
Community partners could include public health offices, early years’ program, local arts councils, social service agencies and community recreational clubs.
“At the moment, in our board we do not have a community hub set up,” said Shearer. “We have been consulting with about five communities to see if we can work to create one.”
Accommodating community partners in a school with extra space means they will have to pay rent to the school board.
“It’s not free and those who rent space in a school community hub will have to pay rent which will be determined by the rents out in the community, so it likely will be higher in Timmins than in Smooth Rock Falls,” explained Shearer.
Before an community organization could move into a school building and share it with a school renovations would need to be undertaken to separate the structure into self contained units.
“One of the challenges facing us as we move towards establishing community hubs, is the cost for renovating the space, so we can keep the schools secure, and that means building a wall, splitting washrooms or building new ones to serve the school needs and to serve the community partner,” Shearer explained.
“The question is where do the funds come from to help to pay for the renovations,” he added. “There is some money for that in new provincial budget, so we keep moving forward on this.”
