With a moratorium on school closures in effect across the province, the Greater Essex County District School Board is looking to bring down its number of empty student spaces.
With $170-million in projects completed, underway or in the works, empty spaces are expected to drop from 4,814 to about 3,100 over the next few years.
Board Superintendent Todd Awender says higher utilization rates will boil down to fewer school closures in the future.
"We've been in a positive place for a little bit now," he says. "We've certainly decreased the number of empty spaces we have in the school board. We've got enrolment that's increasing and we have a number of new builds that are in the process and are hopefully going to be up and going in the next couple to three years."
He says there may be some boundary changes coming up to help even out numbers.
"Sometimes there might be some capacity issues, buildings that are overcrowded. So we do need to look at potential boundary adjustments in those cases. However, as far as accommodation reviews go, at this point in time those aren't going to be happening and we're really focusing on getting our new buildings up and ready for the students to get in there and learn," says Awender.
The closure moratorium is in place while the Ministry of Education completes an assessment of all Ontario schools.
Awender says the ministry is yet to indicate how long the assessment will take.