A school board meeting at the end of this month may decide the fate of students at the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) Dante Alighieri Academy, whose lease on the space at Bathurst Heights Secondary School ends in September.
Bathurst Heights is owned by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) but is currently leased out to several tenants, including the academy and the North York Harvest Food Bank. All tenants will be forced to find new homes by September 2011 to make way for the TDSB’s brand-new John Polanyi Collegiate Institute.
Local TCDSB trustee, Maria Rizzo, is not happy about it.
“We like the building. We’ve been there many a year, and unless the government coughs up the money to build a new school, [the students] are homeless,” she said.
“I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening. In fact, I will chain myself to the door and the police will have to drag the students out, one by one.”
Angelo Sangiorgio, associate director of planning and facilities for the TCDSB, said one option is to lease the former Sir Sanford Fleming Academy — whose students will be transferring to John Polanyi in September — from the TDSB. But he said the TCDSB would still have to decide who to give the space to. St. Margaret Catholic School, which Sangiorgio calls “oversubscribed,” is also being considered as a potential tenant.
“It’s a difficult situation,” he said, of the Dante Alighieri Academy. “They’ve just been leasing, and the community has said, ‘Look, you have to find a permanent solution.’” He said the TCDSB hopes to meet at the end of this month to discuss the best possible tenant for the space.
“At the end of the day,” said Rizzo, “I think everybody should work together to make sure our kids get a good education.