Eight schools in the Prairie Valley School District will be closed as of the end of the current school year, including Lang School and Francis School., while Grades 9-12 will be discontinued at Sedley School.

Board chair Rod Luhning said while the decision to close was difficult, the board is committed to putting students' education needs first.

"I believe today's decisions demonstrate that we're prepared to make tough decision when they are in the best interests of students. At the same time, we recognize the potential for growth or renewal within some of our communities and want to ensure we have the infrastructure in place to support that growth," said Luhning.

But for one of the towns affected, the village of Lang, the school closure is not a positive move.

"It's not going to help. It's just another nail in the coffin of rural Saskatchewan, and another nail in the coffin of the NDP government as far as I'm concerned," said Mayor Al Broderick, pointing out some economical factors that make the closure highly unfair. "Lang is in the RM of Scott, and we are one of the highest-assessed areas in Saskatchewan. We just got word our mill rates are going up, and they're closing down our school."

Other acts made the school closure virtually inevitable, such as a few years ago when Lang was downsized from a K-9 school down to K-5, "just to bring up the attendance in Milestone. It made more sense to keep a central school open," said Broderick, adding, "It's unbelievable the taxes that go out of this little town of 175 people to the school board."

The mayor noted the village is wanting to promote the village as a good place to settle with a family, and closing the school will make that extremely difficult.

"There are three or four families with young kids coming in. It's pretty hard to promote a town when they don't have a school," said Mayor Broderick.

As for the future of the school building, the mayor said the board told them they would keep it heated for the next year, and if there are no buyers for it, the building will then be demolished. The mayor said the village may well put in a bid for the building to turn it into a seniors' complex.

MLA Dustin Duncan for Weyburn-Big Muddy commented that these school closures were raised in the Legislature during a recent question period. "It cannot be an easy decision for any school division to decide to close schools," said Duncan.

Duncan said, "Our provincial government needs to look at two things: they need to give school boards other options to using the facility as many communities use their schools as public libraries or communities halls. Second, they need to look at what is acceptable for busing a student."

Duncan felt that the closures felt rushed, and said, "I question if school community councils were given enough time to make a difference, as there have been a couple of schools that had their election and a week later had to discuss school closure."

Prairie Valley board chair Luhning said the board is confident in the quality of education at all of their schools, and will ensure that quality will be sustained into the future.

"We need to make decisions based on realities and one of our realities is declining enrolment We have to work within that reality to continue to provide learning environments that help students across the division achieve and succeed," he said.

The school division will also be closing schools in Earl Grey, Glenavon, Gray, Odessa, Saar and Wilcox, and will also discontinue Grades 9-12 at Kennedy-Langbank School. The school division currently has about 8,000 students enrolled, but project that will decline to 7,000 by the year 2011.

The board recognizes some of the communities will be unhappy with the closures, and Luhning commented, "We have a great deal of respect for the commitment these communities, and all of our communities, have shown to their schools and to their children's education."