School closure options to be discussed with parents

Prince Rupert parents at Seal Cove and Kanata schools will be getting more involved in the process of potential school closures at School District 52. The District is currently looking at possibly closing one, both or neither of the two east end schools for the next school year.

Monday June 4 and Tuesday June 5 will be discussion days at the two schools, with parents at Kanata to gather on the Monday, while Seal Cove parents will meet on the Tuesday.

The potential closures have become the topic of much conversation on the east side of town as parents try to determine how any decisions might impact on the education of their children.

The Daily News featured the developments as a front page story in the Friday paper.

Parents set to speak out in battle to save schools
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Friday, May 18, 2007
Page one

The public is being invited to wade into the debate about closing schools on the east side of town during two public meetings that are scheduled for early June.

The school board is currently exploring the possibility of closing Kanata or Seal Cove Elementary and public meetings will be held in each of those schools to discuss the proposed closures.

A meeting will be held at Kanata Elementary School on Mon., June 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. and a second meeting will be held at Seal Cove Elementary School on Tues., June 5, from 7 to 9 p.m.
Tina Last, school board chair, said staff are in the process of putting together a booklet of information about the possible closures.

"There will be information provided on why we are looking at school closures, what factors we are looking at as to how we arrived here ... it will cover all of that," said Last.

"The superintendent will also have a presentation to make at the meetings as to why he, as the educational leader in our district, feels this is the direction the board should be taking. And he will have information on what these new boundaries could look like if one or two schools close."
These meetings are open not just to parents of students attending those schools, but parents from schools that could be receiving new students if the school closures proceed, as well as to the general public.

"As taxpayers you may not have children in the school system but you are still supporting public education. Do you believe the schools with the capacities they are at are a good use of educational resources? As a taxpayer you have just as much right to offer an opinion as parents with children in the school system," said Last.

Last acknowledged that the prospect of school closures does cause anxiety for people.
"A good percentage of the heightened anxiety is change, nobody likes change," she said.
"What Dick Chambers, our consultant from Prince George has told us, is the kids actually do the transition quite well, it's the adults that find it more difficult."

One issue that is already coming up is that of Parent Advisory Councils (PACs.)

"I attended Lax Kxeen PAC meeting this week, not only as a parent but also as their liaison, and they've made the decision to delay their PAC elections until the fall in the event they may potentially be a receiving school. That would allow any parent who could have children going to Lax Kxeen the opportunity to be involved in the PAC ... It's little things like that that will come out at these public consultation meetings," said Last.

While many school districts in the province have faced school closures in recent years because of budget shortfalls, School District 52 is looking at the issue from an educational point of view.
"We are in a unique, maybe even enviable position because we are not looking at closing schools because we have to, financially, we will eventually because we can't sustain what we are doing for too much longer, but we are looking at it from educational perspective - what is the best education we can provide through facilities and programs?" she said.

The district will inform the public when the information packages for the public meeting are available.

It may be of some interest to parents from the west side of town as the district will also be examining closures on the west side in the future.

"There's an impression we have targeted the east side and we are leaving the west side alone. That's not how it unfolded for us," said Last. "We as the board asked staff to look at our district and look at where we could start. We originally asked staff to look at the whole district but that was really overwhelming because you are going to create a lot of anxiety for the entire community and we really didn't want to do that. Not to say that we do not want to look at the entire district, but we don't want to do it all at once."

Staff came back and said there are three elementary schools - Conrad, Kanata and Seal Cove - all within a stone's throw of each other and it seemed a good place to start.

The board decided in early May to take Conrad off the list of potential closures because the resource centre for the district is located there, as is a Strong Start program.

The board may decide after consultations on Kanata and Seal Cove to close one, both or neither of the schools.