Quote:
Originally Posted by Cage
I point to Dalhousie as an example. There are currently two public elementary schools where only one is viable. The second school survives on a spanish immersion program that covers the whole NW division. Even with the Spanish immersion program, the school has poor utilization rate.
Closing one school in Dalhousise and implementing a bussing option is the most feasable use of funds. This way CBE does not have an operating budget that grows faster than population growth as there would be operating funds available to fully staff a new school in suburbs.
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Speaking as a parent of children who are in the Spanish
bilingual program (it is
not immersion) this statement is not quite correct. Both my kids attended Dalhousie elementary so I speak from experience. The community does indeed have 2 public elementary schools but the regular english program has been shifted to just one of them. The other school is 100% spanish now as the regular program has been eliminated. The school does NOT suffer from a poor utilization rate, rather it is running at 100% capacity and they are turning kids away from the program. As a matter of fact next year another elementary school (in Silver Springs) will be added to the spanish program to accomodate the ever growing number of kids.
Even at this (shifting the english program to one school in Dalhousie) they still need to bus in kids from other communities.
Anyhow, to get back on topic (sort of), Innersoul does make a good point about repurposed schools losing a lot of direct contact with their communities when no local kids attend them, He is also right about extra curricular activities beinga challenge when every kid is either bussed or driven to school which makes it difficult to run an after school program (sports, theatre, band etc.)
It is both a curse and a blessing to have som many options and choices when it comes to school. We live in Tuscany and waited over 10 years for a school to be build. The wait was to the point that we didnt bother sending our kids to the new schools when they did open as they were alrady established with friends etc. in their other schools. The street I live on has about 10 kids of junior high age and EVERY ONE of them attends a different school. Makes it a challenge for them to get to know each other on the street when they are all running on different schedules.
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