Niagara-on-the-Lake resident Don MacDougall, frustrated with how the District School Board of Niagara is structured, says parents may be the town’s best chance at bringing back a high school.
And it could be easier than one thinks, he said.
The town’s only high school closed in 2010 after 53 years due to declining enrollment. Students were sent to schools in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.
The municipality later purchased the 26-acre site for $1.67 million in 2015 and sold it to Royal Elite International Academy, a private boarding school attracting international students in 2016, which MacDougall heard was a $2 million sale.
Now known as Vineridge Academy after its rebrand in 2018, tuition’s rumored to be between $40,000 and $60,000 per year, said MacDougall, former teacher, history department head and sports coach at Niagara District for over 30 years.
“What Niagara District did when it opened up in ’58, it drew the four major areas of Virgil, St. David’s, Queenston and the Old Town,” said MacDougall, who retired in 1997.
“It was the most important development in the history of the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake as we know it today.”
It wasn’t until MacDougall started attending Niagara District that he found friendships that would last him for life, he said.
But he said that for his grandson Adam Lamb, he had to go to Meyer, where he missed out on a lot of the treasure of NOTL.
“He doesn’t know people and other parts of the town — and they don’t know him,” he said.
“People in the town aren’t going to send their kids to that school for $40,000 a year,” he said, questioning the need for an international school.
“(It) has no benefit to the town,” said MacDougall. “I’d like to see a group of parents have their own school,” he said, adding that the building is in perfect condition and has everything needed.
“Everybody thinks it’s complicated, it’s not,” he said. “It’s too simple.”
He said the requirements are minimal: Specific curriculum documents, a legally qualified principal and teachers.
But when it comes to NOTL getting a high school back, there’s no pressure to get the Niagara District site back, said Coun. Erwin Wiens.
“Land isn’t the issue. If we need land, we have unlimited amount of land,” he said.
“I’ve just about given up as far as this board and how they’re set up,” said MacDougall, who ran to be a trustee in 2023.
Although the issue resurfaced in 2022 at the town’s committee of the whole meeting, no progress has been made since, partly because the town doesn’t have a voice representing it at the District School Board of Niagara, MacDougall said.
At the school board, the four trustees for the town are also trustees for St. Catharines, which makes it hard for NOTL candidates to win a seat due to the large population difference, he said.
MacDougall argues that census data was not considered enough by the provincial government in 2010, as it was too focused on protecting the town’s large tax base.
There were 700 to 800 high-school-aged students in need of a school to attend at that time, he said.
“Yet, we don’t have a high school because they arbitrarily decided to bus kids all over the place rather than follow the census,” which is ever-growing, he said.
“You’re closing schools,” he said. “Then, you don’t have enough space for the kids you’ve got.”
Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa said the town is in the midst of conversations about the issue and planning staff relay those talks to the school board.
“To make sure we know what our needs are, what our current population is and what our future growth trends are,” he said.
Zalepa said the town needs a high school and wouldn’t have supported selling such a strategic piece of land with potential community benefits.
He was part of a group that fought to keep the school open and said his stance hasn’t changed.
“Communities of our size should have schools,” he said. “Not only that, we’ve grown since that time and we’re continuing to grow.”
But Zalepa said it’s easy to say now because there may have been pressures at the time he wasn’t aware of.
“I’d like to see something happen,” said Wiens. “Because a school is a centre spot of a community.”
