School board votes to close 3 Mountain high schools

Hamilton public school board trustees have voted to close Barton, Hill Park and Mountain high schools and replace them with a new $25-million school.

Ten of 11 trustees voted in favour of the plan for a new high school southeast of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. A new high school is contingent on funding from the Ministry of Education.

A new school in the southeast corner of the Mountain is "long overdue and badly needed," said trustee Judith Bishop, who voted in favour of the move.

Chair Tim Simmons also approved the plan, saying the student demand is evident from the number of Mountain students going to new Catholic high schools there.

"Students like new schools," he said. "The programming is better sometimes, or they're just nicer to be in. We need to do some of the hard work our coterminous board did previously."

The south accommodation review committee is part of a larger city-wide review looking at all but three of the board's 18 high schools.

The review is driven by declining enrolment and the age of the board's buildings.

The motion passed was as follows:

"The closure of Barton, Hill Park and Mountain Secondary Schools upon the opening of a new school located both easterly and south of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway pending Ministry of Education approval with an opening no later than September 2015."

Last week, the board voted to close Parkside Secondary School in Dundas and move its students to nearby Highland Secondary School.

On May 9, trustees voted to close Delta, Sir John A. Macdonald and Parkview secondary schools in the lower city and build a new $32-million school pending provincial funding.

CBC Hamilton streamed the event live.

Stay tuned for more coverage in the morning.