The proposed closure of Ontario’s oldest high school has drawn fire from students both present and past, including a member of the Tragically Hip, Olympic triathlete Simon Whitfield and former House of Commons speaker Peter Milliken.

After 220 years — more than a century on its current site — Kingston Collegiate & Vocational Institute (KCVI) may be closed and its students merged with those of another school that also could close, with all of them moved to a new school yet to be built if Limestone District School Board trustees approve a staff recommendation on June 19.

It is the latest historic Ontario school to be threatened with closing because of declining enrolment across the district, after Peterborough Collegiate closed last year despite province-wide protest.

“It’s ironic that KCVI, a school with a waiting list, that is diverse in every way and that has two gyms and the only fully functioning auditorium in the whole board, is favoured to close,” said Grade 11 student James Gibson-Bray, who helped organize a student rally Friday.

“We’re not chess pawns — we’re human beings and we want to say mega-schools do not work because students end up feeling lost; that’s what Peterborough students tell us happened when Peterborough Collegiate closed,” said 16-year-old Gibson-Bray, who also argued KCVI’s location allows it to have rich partnerships with Queen’s University next door.

“The whole downtown would be affected if the school closes — almost every downtown lawn has a ‘Save our Schools’ sign on it.”

However, Kingston no longer can afford three central high schools because of falling enrolment, said board communications officer Jane Douglas, who noted two-thirds of students at KCVI come from outside the neighbourhood for specialty programs such as French immersion and the International Baccalaureate program.

Both of the other two central high schools — Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Loyalist Collegiate — are under-enrolled but are newer buildings, she said. Staff has proposed that KCVI and Queen Elizabeth be sold and the money used to build a new, larger school between their two locations that would be able to offer a full range of programs. A community review committee last year recommended if three schools cannot stay open, a new school should replace KCVI and Queen Elizabeth.

Douglas said the board “values downtown Kingston as a vibrant residential, cultural and commercial hub” and also values the community services offered by Queen Elizabeth, adding “any consolidation of any school is a very difficult decision for all trustees.”

Dozens of former grads penned an open letter to trustees urging the school stay open, and Tragically Hip guitarist Rob Baker wrote an opinion piece in the local paper advocating the preservation of KCVI, and the merger of Queen Elizabeth and Loyalist. There is a website and Facebook group to fight the closings

Surgeon Lindsay Davidson, parent of a Grade 10 student at KCVI, argued it makes no sense to close a downtown school that’s more than 90 per cent full and brings families to the downtown.

“It’s the heart of our community and a magnet for downtown, and this (proposal to close it) is all about money and real estate.”

Kirsten Bruce was a Peterborough Collegiate student who tried the new larger school last fall when the old school closed.

She lasted less than one term, and said “I just hope the Kingston students don’t go through the same injustice.

“The new school was bigger and a lot less inclusive, especially for LGBTQ students; a lot of them got bullied at the new school,” said Bruce, 18. “I fought school closure for a year and a half. It causes so much pain.”

Annie Kidder is executive director of the parent advocacy group People for Education, and she said it’s often the downtown areas where enrolment falls, putting historic old schools at risk of closing.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“It’s a constant problem for boards that are desperate for money because a lot of these decisions (to close schools) make financial sense,” said Kidder. “It’s probably cheaper in many cases to build new schools that have better facilities and science labs and music rooms and auditoriums and tech facilities, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to miss that old school with the drafty windows and crumbling ceilings.

“Closing schools is such a difficult, emotional awful process. It’s never not painful.”