On the school board agenda for April 4th, there is a recommendation to re-open Springwood Elementary for September 2017, and revise the catchment areas for Heather Park Elementary school and Glenview Elementary.
It’s important to note that this motion has not passed at this point, and it will be very interesting to hear the discussion at the board meeting.
The motion as written states that “students currently enrolled in Grade 6 in the proposed new catchment area for Springwood Elementary School be permitted to remain at their current school for Grade 7”. It is possible that this would mean that students currently enrolled in kindergarten to grade 5 would not be permitted to remain at their current school.
The motion as written also states that a transfer process will take place from April 9 to 21, 2017.
The background given is that currently Heather Park, Hart Highlands, and Glenview are projected to be near or at operating and nominal capacity for September 2017. With the November 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision, and negotiations between the provincial government and the BC Teachers’ Federation, class sizes are being decreased.
The organization of Heather Park, Hart Highlands, and Glenview is estimated to require ten additional classrooms. They note that reopening Springwood, and revising catchments, will provided the additional classrooms required in this area.
Reopening Springwood (section of Board agenda package dealing with this issued).
The Board of Education will hold their regular public meeting on Tuesday, April 4th at 7 p.m. at the Central Administration Office located at 2100 Ferry Avenue. School board meetings are open to the public. There is a 30 minute public input session at the beginning, at which anyone who puts their name down may speak for 5 minutes at most.
It’s possible that people may be interested in a DPAC report from 2012 about future capacity issues in the district: https://sd57dpac.ca/2012/04/enrolment-projections-and-capacity-report/
As we noted then, “There should be time built in for dialogue, discussion, collaboration, and consensus building to take place about options for dealing with capacity issues, and this discussion should not take place in the eleventh hour.”
Coming from a grade seven student at Glenview elementary, I do not think that it is far for anyone to have to move schools if they did not want to. Some of the grade five students have known each other for six years! Taking these lids and placing them in a whole different environment involuntary is absolutely idiotic! Yes I agree that Glenview is getting pretty crowded but that should not result in picking and chosing who gets to stay and who doesn’t because of their catchment area. I think if someone did not want to transfer, they Shouldn’t have to. I jave moved schools 5 times and pretty soon to be 6 times when I move on to Kelly road , and it is not fun, especially when you have to leave all your friends behind. – Grade seven at Glenview elementary