An audible sigh of relief echoed through the board offices of the Rainbow District School Board on Thursday evening as Superintendent of Schools Bruce Bourget read the staff's final report on accommodation plans.
Bourget delivered the message that staff's recommendation was that both Lively District Secondary School and Chelmsford Valley District Composite School would remain open.
In the board's intitial accommodation review that was released in August, CVDCS was slated to be consolidated into Confederation Secondary School and Sudbury Secondary School, while Lively was proposed to be consolidated into Lockerby Composite School.
Staff's most recent recommendation is that Chelmsford Valley District Composite School remain open in a revitalized JK to 12 format, while Lively District High School continues to operate under its current model of grade 7 and 8 (English and French Immersion) and grades 9 to 12 (English program).
An uptick in enrolment numbers played a major role in the board's latest recommendations according to Rainbow Board Director of Education Norm Blaseg.
“The more students we have, the more grants we receive from the Ministry of Education,” said Blaseg. “It is essential that we retain and gain students and given the impact, enrolment must be monitored closely and more importantly, sustained over the long term.”
The Oct. 31 enrolment numbers saw an increase which will result in a $1.5 million adjustment in grant revenue from the province.
As a result, the board will now only draw $852,000 from its reserves for the 2016-17 school year, as opposed to the $2.35 million that they had initially planned for,
Year over year the consolidation savings will result in less money being drawn from the board's reserves until 2019-2020 when the board will be operating with a balanced budget and will be drawing nothing from reserves.
While the feeling around the room was mostly that of relief among the 40 or so parents that were in attendance, it wasn't all positive as it was also announced that the board was recommending to discontinue the French Immersion program at CVDCS, a decision that blindsided parent Felicia Fahey.
“This is a huge win for Lively parents and I'm thrilled that our school is staying in our community (Chelmsford),” said Fahey.
“This shows that they (the board) are actually listening, but this announcement to discontinue French Immersion came out of nowhere, my kids are in French Immersion and now I'm going to have to bus them into the city if this recommendation holds up.”
Fahey has been one of the more vocal leaders of the parent group in Chelmsford and has held meetings and started a Facebook group to save the school.
“(Removing French Immersion) was never part of the proposal,” said Fahey. “It's time to get back to work now and see what else we can come up with.”
Lively parents Adam and Jody Walli empathized with Fahey's sentiments as they've had a lot of sleepless nights since the board's original recommendation to close Lively District Secondary School.
“It's a big relief for sure,” said Adam. “We've been following along with what's been happening in other communities and it looks like the board has listened to the concerns of the parents and students.”
Adam and Jody have two children who attend LDSS, and the parents say that this is a big wake up call to the community.
“This is a win but we've got to keep pushing and get the message out there that these schools are important,” said Jody. “We need to talk to our neighbours and our kids and continue to promote and market our school so that we can continue to attract students.”
Keeping the conversation going at the provincial level was a message that was stressed by board chair Doreen Dewar as the meeting wound to a close.
“We need to push and push hard, the letter has gone to the ministry (of education),” said Dewar. “But what I'm really looking for is for the minister to understand that we need a rural strategy, we need a structure that's going to protect our community schools. That structure is going to require funding, but it's also going to require accommodation and leadership, and that leadership has to come from the minister. We can't continually listen to the sound of one hand clapping, and for us to be approaching other boards to lease space and to share space and to be continually turned down, we need ministry leadership to achieve this.”
To view the full report, visit www.rainbowschools.ca
