We’re told that new schools planned in School District 43 are now being built with a capacity of 400 to 450 students, much larger than typical schools of prior decades, because they can provide more specialized programs and choices for kids.
That news must be a head-shaker to parents who were educated in schools of between 200 and 250 students. They must wonder why it’s now better to be educated in a larger building with more kids.
They want to know: Who killed the neighbourhood school?
The provincial government is mostly to blame for the trend to larger elementary schools because it isn’t providing adequate funding to build and staff more, smaller schools.
But in fairness, taxpayers don’t want to pay more to the government, and with health care taking an ever larger chunk of the budget, less money for schools is an obvious outcome. Are taxpayers to blame for this trend?
Perhaps the increasing competitiveness of the education system, aided by the Fraser Institute report that ranks schools, is to blame because parents feel obligated to seek out special programs that are further away.
But not all parents want that for their kids. Can’t there be some compromise? Why not have a few magnet schools with multiple special programs and continue to build and maintain neighbourhood schools for those who want a community feeling — and less driving.
It’s not that larger schools are a bad thing if administrators and teachers can create a small-school feeling and they can provide more choice while being attentive to individual needs. But for some parents, walking their child to a school close to home is preferable.
Of 46 elementary schools in SD43, only seven have populations of between 400 to 450, with one school — Walton elementary, with its Mandarin Immersion program — having more, and all the others having fewer students. And on Burke Mountain, if a 250-student school was the target enrolment, there would already be enough students in the area to open a school there in September.
With the new standard, though, Smiling Creek would only be half full. No wonder parents are upset.
