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Parents and students at Ottawa’s largest school board should prepare to confront the two most controversial words in education: “school closure.”

No schools are targeted yet, but some will have to close as the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board conducts sweeping reviews over the next five years, warns a report to be considered by trustees Tuesday.

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The report lays out the harsh reality: Enrolment is declining, and across the board there are 11,500 empty student spaces.

But there’s a mismatch between where schools are located and where they are needed.

In some fast-growing suburban areas and other pockets of the city, schools are crammed, their yards filled with portables. At the same time, 32 elementary schools across the district have an occupancy rate of less than 65 per cent. Four high schools are half empty, operating at less than 50 per cent of capacity.

The board is struggling to eliminate a budget shortfall and can’t afford to keep paying for unused classrooms, or padding the funding to help small schools maintain a variety of programs, the report warns.