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Parents of a public elementary school in
Warren
are facing a serious problem with respect to the continuing education of
their young children. The problem is that their English Language public
school is too small to remain open. It only has 16 students and this is
clearly not enough to provide an adequate instructional program for
students. The Rainbow District School Board wants to close the school in
Warren
and bus the children to a larger school in nearby Markstay.
Many parents are concerned that some students in rural regions
already travel 40 minutes on a bus and will have to be on the bus another
40 minutes to get to Markstay. This means that primary school children
will be on the bus for as long as 80 minutes in the morning and another 80
minutes in the afternoon, just to get back and forth to school. They may
also have to transfer to different busses to complete the trip. That is an
unacceptable situation for any young primary or junior grade children.
A solution seems to be available, but it may result in the creation
of a whole new type of “school model” that is inevitable if we are to
solve problems in the future that are similar in nature to that being
experienced in Warren.
It would appear as if one school that provided instruction to all
students in English and/or French would solve the problem. In other words,
all students from the
Warren
area would all attend one school where the elementary school curriculum
would be taught to them in either English or French, regardless of
religion or school board affiliation. Students who wished to be provided
instruction in English would be taught in English classes which would be a
mix of public and Catholic students. Likewise for those wishing
instruction in the French language.
Split
grades in this case would mean Public/Catholic or English/French and would
result in teachers providing grouping within their classrooms accordingly.
The Rainbow District School Board is experiencing the same problem
with another school in the Walden area.
R.H.
Murray
Public School
in Whitefish, with an enrolment of about 100 students is being considered
for closure while the students would be bussed to a new, larger elementary
school to be built in Lively. Some of the students would be facing bus
rides in excess of one hour under the move. Parents there are also upset
and are doing everything possible to keep their school open.
REFLECTION:
This may be more of a Northern or small rural school problem, but
it is a solution that may be forced upon school boards unless they find a
way of cooperating with each other. Parents are not going to accept bus
rides of an hour or more for their young children – nor should they be
expected to. Especially not when there are perfectly good buildings with
space available within their local community. For these parents, the
proximity of the school is more important than any school system
affiliation. In other words, at this point they are not worried about
whether their children attend a public or catholic system, nor are some of
them worried about the English or French. They want a quality education
for their children without having to subject them to up to three hours on
a bus.
Some sort of compromise should be considered by the Ministry of
Education and the school boards for these types of situations. It should
be possible to come up with a school model that would allow for the
combining of all four school board systems under one roof. The funding
model can be structured so that none of the existing four school boards
need pay any extra money for keeping the school open and when it comes to
administration and additional funding, such schools can be treated as
separate entities by the province. A cooperative approach could be
developed by the four school boards to accommodate the needs of the
children and parents until students are ready to be bussed to larger,
distant schools for the higher intermediate and secondary school grades.
A solution along this line would allow parents living in areas
served by
Warren
schools and those served by R.H. Murray in Walden, to keep their children
closer to home during the important six to eight years of education from
JK to Grade 6. Quality of education does not just mean what goes on inside
the walls of a school building. It includes the traveling to get to the
school and in most parent’s opinion, if you have to spend over 40
minutes on a bus; you have already diminished any quality of education you
may receive in the classroom.
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