In additional, almost all athletic teams have been eliminated in favor of a strict academic approach to schooling. Traditional favorites like high school football and basketball have been scrapped; with a bye given to opponents who were supposed to play against PDCS this year due to a lack of manpower needed to operate a football or girls' basketball team. Some of the less demanding sports like volleyball (for grades 11 and 12) had been given authorization to compete by the school's athletics department; with 25% of the students on the team. Absenteeism was virtually non-existent in the final year of school operations. Due to a declining youth population in the Port Dover area, the school was officially closed on January 31, 2013. Compared to 2001, there are 1800 fewer children and young people living in the vicinity of Port Dover Public School. Academic programs in Valley Heights Secondary School and Delhi District Secondary School have been beefed up; hoping to attract former PDCS students to those schools. Future of Norfolk County schools While most schools under the governmental school system (Grand Erie District School Board) will remain open in the foreseeable future, they will see more than 1000 empty seats in their classes by 2017. Everything from homeschooling to the rapidly aging local population to the increasing popularity of virtual high schools on the Internet has stunted the ability of the government-funded secular high schools to maintain full classrooms in recent years. Waterford District High School may once again face serious threats of closure by 2017 due to government cutbacks and declining enrolment. If attendance continues to decline due to aging and the abandonment of traditional school settings for "safe" online learning environments, another solution would be to close down Simcoe Composite School and Waterford District High School in favor of a new secular high school spanning somewhere in Norfolk County. Both Valley Heights Secondary School and Delhi District High School have the government funding and student enrolment numbers needed to remain open as separate institutions for an indefinite period of time. The gradual aging of the local population will eventually eradicate the young people from the communities of Norfolk County. Port Dover will have lost 3,600 children and young people between the years 2001 and 2023 due to the diminishing youth demographics of Norfolk County. All public secondary schools that currently serve Norfolk County students will eventually have to