NORTHEAST 鈥� The North East School Division is running a project looking into small school sustainability in the area.
The project, which is to run until March 2019, has a team is consulting Arborfield School, Bjorkdale School, Gronlid School, Star City School, as well as the school board, school community councils and parents/caregivers.聽
The approach is attempting define the discover strengths of the schools through a facilitated discussion, determine the preferred future and designing the preferred future.
Don Rempel, the division's director of education, said this was inspired by conversations on the board table and school community councils for school reviews.
鈥淲ith these last few school reviews we鈥檝e continued to operate the schools so we talked to the community about the programming, what we continued to do, what the bus routes would look like,鈥� Rempel said. 鈥淪o we continued to have a school operating at the end of the process. So let鈥檚 look at it from a strength-based process as opposed to鈥� a threatening or a deficit.鈥�
Rempel said he wants to maintain the operating outcome but not repeating a threatening process of reviews that results in discomfort and confusion from the community.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 want to repeat a process that we didn鈥檛 feel was very fruitful in the past, so we thought there鈥檚 a way we can do this more effectively and have the same outcome,鈥� Rempel said. 鈥淲e want to have respectful conversations with our communities but we don鈥檛 want the cloud of possible school closures hanging over it because then you can鈥檛 have these conversations.鈥�
Rempel said a classroom closing has a different impact on small schools as it does with larger schools.
鈥淲hen you have a large school that has a declining population it just means one less classroom and the parents never see the impact of it but when you get to a certain point when you lose a teacher in a really small school it gets to be a lot of anxiety around that. So, 鈥榳hat is the program going to look like, does that mean the school is going to close?鈥� And we want to say, 鈥榥o, it doesn鈥檛 mean that the school is going to close, we鈥檙e just going to deliver it differently.鈥欌��
According to Luke Perkins, the division's board chair, this is about keeping the small schools operational.
聽鈥淭here鈥檚 lots of procedure written and everything on how to close schools but nothing on what we can do to help keep them rolling,鈥� Perkins said.
The fee for the project costs the division $25,750 and includes all consultative services, administrative support, materials, report preparation and travel expenses.
鈥淚 think we鈥檙e starting with the concept that the school will continue to be there,鈥� Rempel said. 鈥淪o how can we partner with communities to make sure we have good understandings of what the staffing is going to look like, what the programs are going to look like, and have that conversation about what does the school need to be successful.
