Consolidation

The school board had a meeting with the Capilano, Gold Bar and Fulton Place community leagues on April 22 at the Capilano Community Hall. George Rice, our school board trustee, wasn’t there.

A couple of things came out at the meeting. The Edmonton Public School Board has a $33 million surplus. That’s no reason to mismanage funds, but it does mean they could add extra spaces in the outlying areas of the city without closures.

It was clear that the recommendation to the trustees must include consolidation. Adding alternative programs to the school is not reason enough to keep the schools open. The school board considers our area to have around 2,100 spaces, and believes we should have closer to 1,200. The presenters said if we saw one school closure in the neighbourhood they would be back in five or ten years to look at more consolidation. It looks like they want to close not one but two of the four schools.

The school board says Fulton has 480 spots, Gold Bar 340, and Capilano 405. Total enrolment between the three elementary schools is 486. If the intent is to keep elementary separate from junior high, they could only close one elementary school, which seems a certainty. But, if the school board wants to close 1,000 spaces, they will need to close Hardisty Junior High, which has 402 students and 878 spaces. The presenters talked about likely increases in capacity at Ottewell and Kenilworth when new schools in Millwoods open. This kind of talk seems to indicate they want to close not just one elementary school but Hardisty also. Closing Hardisty would be tragic since the every parent with a kid there says the school is doing amazing things, especially under the principal Al Lowrie. How can we lose that? We have schools providing an excellent education and community experience for our kids, but the school board looks strictly at the numbers. They will tell you that they want what’s best for the kids, but need to close the schools because they have too many spaces and that costs too much money. The biggest savings will come from staff reductions (the board saves $200,00 a year by closing a school) and the staff are what make our schools great.