A freeze on school closures was lifted in Nova Scotia yesterday as the education department implemented a new process for reviewing schools.
School boards must now spend a year reviewing schools for possible closure starting April 1 and ending March 31.
For this year only, the province is extending the deadline to identify schools for closure review to April 30.
School boards must now prepare impact assessments explaining why a school should be under review. It must include information on historical and projected enrollment data, local population trends and the condition of the building.
Under the new process, the earliest a school could be identified for closure review is September 2009.
The new process is based on recommendations of a review committee that looked into the school closures process last year.
