Blizzard wrong about Eden High School
I usually agree with Christina Blizzard but not today. In her Sunday column in the Toronto Sun she is asking that Eden High School, the publicly funded faith-based alternative school located in the City of St. Catharines, Ontario be closed. Why? Because apparently some parents in Niagara-on-the-Lake are angry that the main high school there — Niagara District Secondary School — will be shut down for a lack of enrollment? Yet, even if Eden were closed, the majority of its students would not attend that school because Eden students come from all over the Niagara region. Moreover, parents would simply move their students to a Catholic high school given its similar Christian values.
Clearly Blizzard didn’t do her homework on this story. It is true that Eden has the same high school curriculum as any other Ontario public high school, secular or Catholic, and that all its spiritual activities are before and after school. It is also true that its teachers are all part of the the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF). But, what she doesn’t tell you is the history of the school.
I know this history personally because I taught at Eden when it was still a private high school located on Highway 55 in Niagara-on-the-Lake and I currently have family members involved there — both as a student and a parent council member. And, I wrote about it during the October 2007 provincial election campaign.Twenty years ago the Eden High School board started to meet with senior administrators and trustees of the District Board of Niagara. Eden was called Eden Christian College at that point. After lengthy negotiations the Eden board went to the members of the Mennonite Brethren Church Community across all of Ontario and asked permission for Eden to be integrated into the public system but with two boards overseeing its management.
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