Near North District School Board requests province study four-board school model

Near North District School Board in North Bay is asking the Ministry of Education to look into finding more resources for students, staff and schools.

The largest school board in North Bay, Ont., the Near North District School Board, is requesting that the Ontario Government look at and review the current four-board school model and look at cost-saving methods to bring more resources into schools for staff and students.

School board trustee Bill Steer wants the Ministry of Education to look at how to bring more resources to students, staff and schools.

“I think it’s time maybe to look at these efficiencies,” he said.

To do this, at the last school board meeting on Jan. 14, he brought forward a motion, which the board unanimously passed, requesting the province review the current four-school board system requiring English Catholic, English public, French Catholic and French public.

Steer has served as a school board trustee for seven years and is the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) representative for NNDSB. He is also the chair of the Northern Region of OPSBA school boards and sits on the OPSBA executive.

The motion states:

“That in the interests of applying more resources to student success and well-being, the NNDSB Board of Trustees send a letter to the Minister of Education asking the Ministry to initiate, study and begin consultations regarding efficiencies within the four-school board system model. And that the NNDSB also sends a letter to OPSBA asking it to advocate the same with the Ministry of Education on its member boards' behalf and that the letters be shared with all OPSBA member boards.”

“If there’s a comprehensive study, a lot of efficiencies with regards to the operations of the four school boards will come out of this,” said Steer

“Of course, all that money will save millions, if not, billions of dollars.”

While this is not a consolidation effort, Steer said, that is a topic of discussion for another time.

Further with rumours of a provincial election on the horizon, he added, it’s the perfect time for the province to commit to any kind of cost-saving measures.

“If there’s consultations with the four boards, the public and others, I think a lot of good ideas will come out on how to save money,” said Steer.

NNDSB officials told CTV News that there is no magic number on how many school boards could operate in the region, Steer compared the review to when the health care system was overhauled and reformed as mandated by the province.

Steer said that in the past, the provincial government would initiate these kinds of studies.

“A lot of good things came out of them for education,” he said.

In 2021-22, about two million children enrolled in Ontario’s public schools across the four school systems.

The English public school system is the largest, with 31 school boards and 1.3 million students enrolled in 2021-22, followed by the English Catholic system, with 29 school boards and close to 555,000 students, the French Catholic system, with eight school boards and 76,500 students and the French public system, with four school boards and over 34,000 students.

CTV News did reach out to the Ministry of Education for comment but no response was received before this publication.