A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Communities Affected by Public School Closures in Ontario
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Authors
Snow, Gabrielle
Date
2019-08-28
Type
Language
en
Keyword
School closure , Ontario , Planning , Geography
Alternative Title
Abstract
The prevalence of public school closures in Ontario is growing. Though schools provide
extensive social benefits for communities they, the current Ministry of Education (MOE) model
for determining school closures called Pupil Accommodation Review Guidelines (PARG),
principally relies on economic efficiency as criteria. In response to growing concern surrounding
the inequity of the current model – with apprehension that vulnerable communities are the
disproportionate targets —a moratorium on school closures was declared in June 2017 to
revamp the model. The proposed research aims to fill the existing gaps in data and research on
Ontario school closures to inform the creation of a model that minimizes hardship on
vulnerable communities. Specifically, this research will produce a comprehensive and publicly-
available dataset of pending and completed school closure locations in Ontario since the
establishment of PARG in 2006 and a subsequent analysis that identifies socio-spatial inequities
in Ontario school closures. This research will consist of four phases (school closure dataset
creation; acquisition of community socioeconomic profiles; data harmonization; and spatial
analysis) and will draw from Ontario public school board website archives for data creation and
the 2017 Ontario Marginalization Index (ON-Marg), for existing socioeconomic data. This
research will make important contributions to research, policy, and practice in its production of
data and analysis that are presently non existent and its tremendous potential to influence
policy that can protect vulnerable communities from the permanent loss of public schools.