Students sorry to say goodbye to Quinte Secondary

By Leah Den Hartogh

BELLEVILLE – Students and staff have entered their very last year at Quinte Secondary School this September.

Some students are still upset about the decision made by the local public school board last spring to close the school this coming June.

“I just think it’s really stupid, because when the school closes all of us are going to have to split up – half are going to go to Moira (Secondary) and half of us are going to Centennial. We are all going to be split up and you are going to have to start fresh,” said Sophia Lessels, a Grade 11 student at Quinte.

Lessels will be attending Centennial Secondary for her final year of high school.

In an interview Thursday outside Quinte, which is on College Street just west of North Front Street, she said that it’s “a great place for a school, because it’s right in the middle of everything. If you want to go for lunch, or you’re close to your house, you can go there.”

Dylan Horslen, a Grade 12 student at Quinte, said that he had been planning on returning another year after graduating this coming June, but doesn’t know where he would have to go.

“I have been here since I was Grade 9, and it’s a good school for everything. We have everything for every reason, and now it’s closing down. It sucks,” Horslen said. “We have nowhere to go and nothing to do.”

Kerry Donnell, communications officer for the Hastings Prince Edward District School Board, said that students at Quinte should see the change of schools next year in a postive light.

“I would say to look at this as a positive experience. School is what you make it. The building itself is the bricks and mortar,” said Donnell. “It’s really the people coming together in the learning environment, in the collaborative spaces, where we can learn from each other and meet new people.”

The school board says it is is hoping to build a new Grade 9-to-12 school on the current Hillcrest Public School site in northeast Belleville and close Moira Secondary. The students from Moira, including those moved over from Quinte, would attend the new school. 

But if funding from the provincial government for a new school is denied, the school board will request money to renovate Moira and rebrand it with a new name, Donnell said.

“The Ministry of Education provides us with funding to build new schools or do renovations or additions. In terms of that work, school boards have to do what are known as capital business cases where we lay out our wants and needs.”

The board’s final plan is to have only two high schools in Belleville, she said.

The latest enrolment numbers show that the number of students at secondary schools in the area served by the board has decreased this year, continuing a recent trend.