By Richard Leitner, News Staff

Hamilton public school trustees have rejected calls to reverse a decision to let Billy Green elementary school students in the Sherwood catchment area apply to go to Saltfleet District for high school instead.

Mountain trustee Laura Peddle could only muster one other supporter on Monday as she argued the staff decision interferes with an ongoing high school closure process that threatens to shutter Sherwood and could prompt a legal challenge.

Neither the four closure options put forth by a volunteer accommodation review committee nor the staff recommendation proposes to send Billy Green students to Saltfleet, which is already overcrowded and has 12 portables, she said.

“This school was closed to out of catchment (students) a year ago. Its population has actually gone up by 26 students since then,” Peddle said.

“We might be opening ourselves up to a possibility of an appeal because it will be viewed as a technical loophole, that we’ve actually changed the boundary and started to destabilize a very stable secondary school by taking away a feeder school.”

But education director John Malloy said the 49 openings available at Saltfleet are open to all students outside the school’s catchment area and the board has always accommodated requests to fill any vacancies where possible.

Billy Green students whose applications are accepted will either walk or find their own transportation to Saltfleet. Those not accepted will be bused to Sherwood, recommended to close in June 2015.

“Most of our schools, except for three or four of our secondary schools, have space,” Malloy said.

“The one thing we cannot control and cannot be part of any kind of appeal is, if our parents wish to go from one school to another school where there is space, under our guidelines they have right to ask.”

Board chair Tim Simmons said no one is forcing Billy Green students to go to Saltfleet.

“Why do we have to go to the lowest common denominator,” he said. “Let’s allow these students to go to the school of their choice.”

But Flamborough trustee Karen Turkstra, who cast the only other vote in favour of Peddle’s motion to reverse course, said students seeking similar consideration at Waterdown District have been denied access to empty seats in portable classrooms.

“This is a double standard,” she said. “I’ve had parents begging me to go to Waterdown District High and they were not allowed to go because it was portable city and they did not have the space.”