In their place will be a brand new high school south of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway.

The countdown to closure begins Monday when Hamilton public board trustees are presented with an outline of the accommodation review process.

The review will commence in April, said associate director of education Ken Bain, with final decisions by trustees next January or February. Between then and now, he said, there will be a minimum of four public meetings per grouping.

“It has be be done rather quickly because some of the schools need money put in them for repairs,” said Wes Hicks, trustee for Ward 8 (west Mountain).

“As a board, we're not going to put a lot of money into a school that has a possibility of closing — that would be foolish from a financial point of view.”

Hicks said public input is crucial to the process. In other school closures undertaken in the past, notably in the early ’90s, there was little public involvement so there was a great outcry. Parent input is key in making the choice, he said, but he knows there will be hard feelings.

“Sometimes the community views it as a negative process right off the bat,” Hicks said.

“Closing a school, it’s an emotional thing. It’s a tie, it’s part of that community. But you have to understand in this day and age communities are larger.”

Along with school closures, boundaries will also be examined, said Ward 6 (east Mountain) trustee Laura Peddle.

She said that given the growing number of “programs of choice” offered at city high schools, she'd like to see boundaries removed altogether.

“They need to be given wings to go where they want,” she said. “They don't need to be boxed into 'I live on the east Mountain so I have to go to Barton or Sherwood.’ ”

If a student likes the offerings at another high school, they should be able to go there, Peddle said, even if the school bus doesn't bring them there.

Bain said when trustees are given the terms of reference, they'll also be advised which schools will be clustered together in review committees.

“At one point, we contemplated one committee to deal with all the schools, but we are breaking it down into smaller segments,” said Bain. “(One) committee would have been too unwieldily to manage effectively.”

He declined to specify how many groups there will be; Mountain trustees expect one will look exclusively at schools in wards 6, 7 and 8.

Peddle and Hicks said it was likely two high schools could be closed while making way for a new one south of the Linc.

“I would say it will be more than one,” said Peddle, based on the 2002 elementary school closures she was involved in.

“Think about it: we closed a lot of elementary schools — did we close a corresponding number of secondaries?”