A workshop on the future of rural schools attracted over 80 people to Parkhill on the weekend.
The Rural Ontario Education Symposium gathered representatives from as far east as Peterborough, north to Paisley and Chesley, and south to Sarnia and Windsor.
Co-chair Darren Ferguson says the event was about finding solutions rather than voice complaints.
Possible solutions ranged from dismantling the current system of school board and creating one board for the entire province, to turning control of school boards back to the municipalities.
Ferguson says one of the things that has to be acknowledged by the province is the lengthy bus rides that are created by closing rural schools, and the fact that what works in urban centres like the GTA is not a solution for rural Ontario.
Ferguson also argues it's too hard to set an enrollment number for a school to be considered "no longer viable."
He points out there is a debate right now in a rural area of Scotland over saving a local school that has an enrolment of three, because those three students don't have any reasonable options.
