HALIFAX -- Nova Scotia's largest school board is reviewing the status of 17 schools, including two of its high schools in Dartmouth, after a decade of declining enrolment in the suburbs east of the city.
The Halifax regional school board voted in favour of the review at a meeting on Thursday evening.
The board's website says of the total, two of the schools are high schools, three are junior highs, one is a primary to Grade 9 and 11 are elementary schools.
A new high school is being built in the suburb of Eastern Passage and is expected to be complete by 2018, raising questions about the future of the two Dartmouth high schools that will lose about half of their students to the new school.
The school board is adhering to a policy set up in 2014 by the Department of Education that is followed when the permanent closure of a public school is a possibility.
The schools in the Cole Harbour district, one of Nova Scotia's largest suburbs, has seen a decline in students from about 4,500 in 2005 to current levels of about 3,500.
The board is projecting enrolment to remain at that level for the next decade.
The first public meeting to discuss the review is tentatively set for Nov. 21.
