In rural Canada the issue of school closures and consolidations due to low enrollment and heightened fiscal constraints has become a contentious and highly charged issue for citizens and communities. This literature review synthesizes the major effects of school closure on rural communities, identifying economic impacts, social impacts, and…

This article explores the factors associated with support for a merger of Ontario's two publicly funded school systems (secular and Catholic). Drawing upon survey data from over 2,000 Ontarians, it investigates the sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of opinions toward school system reform. We find evidence that both political attitudes…

Small schools and their communities contribute to an important, though threatened, knowledge base. The threat adheres in underlying technologies (conceptual and material) that propel the capitalistic world towards the rationalization of all aspects of human activity. In education, this appears in the consolidation of small schools and ever larger…

In the mid-1960s, a bitter dispute broke out between parents in the Atlee-Jenner School District in Southern Alberta Canada, and the Medicine Hat School Board over the bussing of children for the first time to a new school a long distance away. The move was precipitated by the consolidation of several smaller school districts and the subsequent…

Between 1970 and 1990 enrolment in Newfoundland and Labrador schools dropped by 22 percent. The first wave of major educational reform (1990 to 2000) saw massive reductions in public school expenditures and the reduction of more than 1650 teachers. Facing continued enrolment loss and a large current account deficit, in 2004, government again…

Describes the efforts of a superintendent in Nova Scotia to bring about the amalgamation of two school systems where the majority of the population is French-speaking by offering complete instructional programs in both French and English. (JBM)

Two related components comprise this document: (1) the outline of a Comprehensive Plan describing a process for educational planning offering a framework for revitalization of the system; and (2) examining options for school consolidation moving North York to a system with a distinct middle-school component consisting of grades 6, 7 and 8. This…

While it is not the intent of the paper to portray the rural school jurisdictions as completely riven and incapacitated by conflicting interests, a very strong implication emerging from studies of these school systems is that "integrative" management policies and strategies are needed to counteract the fragmentation which has been…

To develop systematic procedures for determining and closing gaps between current and desired conditions, the North York (Ontario) Board of Education developed a long-range plan in 1979 to provide guidelines for school consolidation in response to declining enrollment, to be included in broader context of planning for the total system. (NEC)

Study of how busing time to school affected daily activities in 64 rural households in Eastern Townships School Board, Quebec (Canada), found that household schedules altered according to distance from school, constraints on students' and families' activities increased as travel time increased, travel time was viewed as wasted time, and farm…

Newfoundland and Labrador has many rural communities, low literacy rates, high unemployment, declining enrollment and population, and teacher shortages. Policy responses have been to consolidate schools, increase rural teacher pay, increase teacher recruitment, implement distance learning and distance professional development, intensify…

Student achievement, cost, rural context, and qualitative differences relative to small/rural schools were analyzed in Alberta to address the choice between small elementary school construction and school consolidation with student busing. Studies in both the United States and Canada have found no consistant significant differences in student…

"Consolidation of schools" is the term used when two or more school districts are made into a single district, one school in one building replacing two or more small schools in several buildings. In some States when but two schools are replaced by one, the new school is called a "union" school, the term "consolidated"…

In 1973, there were 56 one- and two-room elementary schools in Prince Edward Island (Canada). As part of a descriptive survey of these schools, now closed by consolidation, researchers visited each school in 1973 and recorded details of the buildings, facilities, and school organizations. Teachers from 47 schools and their 737 students in grades…

A 1981-82 compilation of population and school statistics from Saskatchewan provides information on the context of rural education in that province. Between 1901 and 1981 the population fluctuated, reaching a high of 991,000 estimated population in 1982. Saskatchewan schools experienced a 19.6% decline in total enrollment from 1971 to 1981, and a…