TORONTO - Critics denounced a publicly funded school planned for students from low-income families in the Niagara region Wednesday, but the Ontario government has no plans to prevent its opening.

The DSBN Academy is scheduled to open in Welland in September, with about 150 low-income Grade 6 and 7 students -- selected by lottery -- bused in from across Niagara. Eventually the school would provide classes up to Grade 12 and have more than 500 students.

The school will provide breakfast and lunch as well as after-school programs, in addition to preparing students to be the first in their family to attend college or university.

The District School Board of Niagara announced Jan. 25 that the new school would be created because the current system wasn't serving poor children well.

Some critics said the trustees should have raised the issue of a low-income school during last fall's municipal elections instead of keeping the idea secret until last month.

The board was closed Wednesday because of a snowstorm, so trustees were not available to comment.

Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky admitted Wednesday that the idea of separating students by income levels wasn't something the province would have proposed, but said she would not get involved in a local decision by elected trustees.

"I do have a concern about the possible stigmatization of children that this type of school might create," Dombrowsky said in an interview.

"I'm happy that there is an important conversation that's going on in the Niagara community, and I expect the people in the community will be clear with the people they've elected on this important issue."

Annie Kidder of the parent group People for Education said the Niagara trustees and others who support the low-income school have "their hearts in the right places," and agreed similar schools have had success in the United States.

However, Kidder said Americans face more difficult challenges because of the level of poverty in which many families find themselves compared with Canadian families.

"Our gap between the high and low performing students based on basically their families is much, much narrower than it is in the United States," she said.

"I'm a little bit worried we're addressing a problem that may exist somewhere else, but doesn't necessarily exist nearly so strongly in Canada."

Welland New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos said separating kids by income amounts to "education apartheid" and wrote a letter asking Dombrowsky to block the low-income school from opening.

"At the end of the day, these kids -- chosen by lottery to participate in this anti-poverty initiative -- are still going home to impoverished households," said Kormos.

"It undermines public education and somehow stigmatizes poor kids as being academically less capable than others."

The Progressive Conservatives said it was "inappropriate" to separate children according to family income levels.

If kids from poorer families require extra support and programs to help them move on to a post-secondary education, that help should be available in all schools, said Opposition critic Elizabeth Witmer, a former education minister.

"Children need to work and play together and people need to learn to get along with one another," said Witmer.

"They should instead have taken a look at how we can strengthen our education system and make sure these students do receive the best education we can provide for them."

The opposition parties and People for Education all said a primary goal of public education was to bring together children of all backgrounds to help create a better society.

"Public education serves a greater purpose in society, including building social cohesion," said Kidder.

"We're supposed to be creating citizens to live in the world and when we start separating our kids, for whatever reasons, we may be in danger of really undermining that capacity in public education."

Kormos complained the empty school in Welland that will be home to the DSBN Academy will need at least $500,000 worth of renovations, and said the board would have to spend thousands more to bus kids from across the region to and from the low-income school.