Walden Public School Grade 5 student Jonah Gibson is worried.
A proposal to close Lively District Secondary School and move more than 100 intermediate students to his JK-6 school could mean overcrowding and a loss of important programs for him and his peers.
“The school would be too crowded. During the strike last year we couldn’t use the gym or the library,” said Gibson to the Walden Public School Council, which conducted a direct consultation to the Walden school community in the past week.
“Parents, staff and students shared with us dozens of concerns,” said Council Chair Clare Foladore.
“We feel the impact of closing Lively and bringing intermediate students to Walden would be severe, and isn’t being considered by the Board through their accommodation review process.”
Walden School Council has prepared a detailed report, “Walden: Unaccommodated” which identified significant consequences to educational quality, student safety, and appropriate use of the newly built Green School.
The report has been sent to Board Trustees and the Executive Council.
Walden has hosted the intermediate classes before. The 2015 labour dispute between the Rainbow Board and secondary school teachers saw Grade 7 and 8 classes placed in the Walden school library, in space in the main office, and with instrumental music practicing in the main foyer.
“The Board should have learned from the 2015 experience that accommodating these students will disrupt Walden’s learning environment, and carry operational and capital cost increases. Excluding these costs from its consideration now is a dramatic oversight,” said Richard Eberhardt, who helped author the report.
“Installing portables seems inevitable, a move which could put Walden’s Green School designation at risk.”
Parent Joanne Penney is also worried about adding portables.
“The possibility of bringing in portables means less vital schoolyard square footage for children to play and learn outdoors. This, in turn, affects the mental and physical health of our younger students,” she writes.
Walden Public School Council has called on the board to include the elementary school officially in the accommodation review process, to ensure that both budgetary and program impacts are considered and a plan is in place.
Foladore agrees.
“Continuing with this process without addressing the issues identified would be willfully ignoring a serious gap in the existing plan.”
Walden: Unaccommodated is available for download here.
