By Gord Bowes, News staff

A five-pound package of paper outlining a volunteer committee’s vision of the future of high schools on the Mountain will soon be landing on the desk of the public school board’s chief administrator.
The package will include the committee’s four closure options, an executive summary, a quick timeline of the process and an appendix of more than 1,000 pages to back up their decision. The appendix will include every document that passed through committee members’ hands since the process began in January 2011.
The committee approved the report Jan. 26 at its final working meeting. Education director John Malloy will receive the document Friday (Feb. 3), staff will then review it and the report, along with a staff recommendation, will be posted on the board’s website Feb. 10. The staff recommendation will also be posted at that time; it’s not known if staff will change or update their recommendation from what the committee heard over a year ago.
Trustees will officially receive the closure panel’s report at their Feb. 13 committee-of-the-while meeting.
The four options, which were not ranked by the committee, all revolve around the opening of a new high school south, and preferably east, of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
Mountain Secondary and its special programming should be maintained, according to the recommendations. In half the options it wants the school to remain open while adding extra programs; in the other options it suggests Mountain be incorporated into the proposed new school.
In two of the options, Sherwood and Sir Allan MacNab would close. In another option, Hill Park and Sherwood close, while in the final one Barton and MacNab would close. Boundaries would have to be adjusted depending on what school is closed.
The panel is recommending no schools be closed until a new one is opened.
It also wants trustees to consider swapping the programming at Westmount (self-paced) and Hill Park (composite).
The board staff recommendation, which was unveiled at the committee’s second meeting over a year ago, suggests closing Sherwood and Mountain Secondary in 2013 because of their physical condition and location, and a move to integrate students from Mountain’s special programs into mainstream schools. Staff also recommend closing Barton in 2015 if a new high school south of the Linc is approved.
While the committee came under fire at its final pubic meeting for not narrowing the options to one, it wasn’t possible without having a firm location narrowed down for a new school site.
“Having four options is simply predicated on not having a site,” said Kevin Robinson, a Hill Park representative.
The staff option did not identify a site. After an outcry from Ward 6 residents who feared they may end up without a high school on the east Mountain, the board said it would build in that ward.
But as the process went on, the committee heard the only property the board owns in the ward isn’t big enough for a new high school — and at one point outside the process, trustees were asked by staff to sever a portion of the land for sale. Around the same time, trustees refused to affirm the new school would be built in Ward 6.
The board has two properties large enough on which to build a new school — the Jerome off Upper Wellington south of the Linc, which has been eyed for several years as a site for a new school or new board headquarters, and the Sheldon site south of Stone Church and east of Garth — but the committee was never excited about those locations, preferring instead a location on the southeast corner of the Mountain.
At times, the final meeting felt like the “torch walk” on the TV show Survivor, with members conjuring up memories from the sometimes-contentious process which began 55 weeks earlier. Some wanted the final report to trustees to include, for the record, an account of the showdown the committee had with the board over the exemption of Westmount from the process. They wanted to note the walkout, a public letter from then-chair Judith Bishop and minutes from a summit meeting with education director Malloy.
The events were not included in the final report.