There's nothing school boards could have done to predict population change and avoid the many school closures we're seeing today.
That's according to Western University education professor Bill Tucker. He says one of the issues is the declining population.
"It's something that really could not have been planned for because during the Baby Boom era you had to build classrooms and you had to build schools to accommodate those students," Tucker explains.
Another factor is population shift, which Tucker also says cannot be predicted.
"Families are moving out of the core area and into the suburbs," he says. "So now what you have is vastly underutilized schools with incredible amount of empty space especially in the core areas."
The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has closed eight schools since 2005.
Meanwhile the Greater Essex County District School Board has shut down 14 schools and built five new ones in the last ten years. Two more schools will close in June -- Percy P McCallum and Gordon McGregor.
Many were also upset after the recent decision to close Harrow High, the town's only secondary school.
In Chatham-Kent, the Lambton-Kent District School Board has closed 14 schools since 1998. And the St. Clair Catholic District School Board has shut down 15 schools since 1998 and opened two new ones.
As a former director of education himself, Tucker says most families understand the reasoning behind school closures.
"You can't run a school that's 30% enrollment or 50% enrollment. It's just a huge black hole in terms of putting money in the pot," he says.
Nowadays school boards are starting to build new schools with room to expand and contract. He says portapacks are becoming more common. They're a series of portable classrooms connected by a hallway and can be removed if enrollment declines.
The province is currently going through a process called right-sizing and Tucker says eventually we'll see more stability when it comes to school closures and consolidations.