The busing policy of Living Sky School Division will come under a major review this summer when the board of education heads into its annual retreat - a two-day session of intense scrutiny of the year's most pressing issues.
With views ranging from policy needing to be strictly followed in order to avoid chaos, to the board being able overrule policy on a case-by-case basis, to "burning" the entire thing, transportation issues have been controversial not just among parents and students, but within the board room as well.
At their last regular meeting of the school year, the board was asked, for a second time, to make an exception in the case of a Grade 8 student residing at Sutton's Beach on Jackfish Lake to be allowed to ride the Living Sky bus to North Battleford in order to attend John Paul II Collegiate, a high school operated by the Light of Christ Catholic School Division.
The bus stops right in front of the student's house, and his friends all ride the bus, his mother told the board, saying it would mean a lot to her son to retain the social connections with his peers that he would lose if, as policy required, he had to find another way to school every day.
Were he to take his Grade 8 at St. Vital School in Battleford, a Catholic elementary school operated by Living Sky, there would be no problem with him riding the bus. Nor would there be a problem if he were going into Grade 9, because rural Grade 9 Catholic students are allowed to ride the Living Sky buses to attend John Paul II Collegiate .
Two motions were lost in the ensuing discussion, leaving the request to the outcome of the upcoming review, which was actually the intent of the first lost motion.
Made by board member Glenn Wouters, who said to make a decision that night would in effect be changing the policy, the first motion called for the request to be put on hold until after the review. It was lost in a tied vote.
A second motion was made by Roy Challis to grant the request based on accommodating the student's wish to start his Catholic high school career in Grade 8 at John Paul II Collegiate, rather than wait until Grade 9, when he graduated from St. Vital School. Its wording was meant to indicate such a motion should not be considered a precedent, however, it was lost to a 6-4 vote.
St. Vital School is a Catholic-education public school operated by Living Sky School Division as per an agreement with the St. Vital parish to provide an elementary Catholic education for its parishioners. Grade 8s are currently housed in the division's elementary schools, although that may be changing in the near future if grade alignment changes see them relocated to North Battleford Comprehensive High School. In the Light of Christ Catholic School Division, Grade 8 is taught at the high school, not in the elementary schools.
Another agreement sees Living Sky School Division busing Catholic students of Grade 9 and older residing within the division to North Battleford Comprehensive High School, from where they can transfer, again in a Living Sky bus, to John Paul II Collegiate. Because Living Sky provides a Catholic Grade 8 at St. Vital, it does not allow for the transfer of Grade 8 students to JPII.
Board chair Ken Arsenault pointed out they are not denying any student a Catholic education.
"We are providing it at St. Vital," he said. "If they choose to go to JPII, then they choose to be outside the division."
Circumstances such as those of the request they discussed that evening are not the only issues board members will be looking at during their retreat.
In past discussions, and indeed in discussion that evening, how wide to open the door when deciding who gets bussed where has long been at issue, and board members have been at odds over that question. Should policy be carved in stone, or should the board have power to make exceptions? If exceptions are granted to high school students, should they be expanded to elementary students as well? Should parents simply be able to pick which schools their children attend and get bused accordingly? Would it be possible to meet those kinds of transportation demands?
Challis noted, the board was once told by a governance facilitator their meeting minutes made it obvious they are obsessed with transportation, because so much time is spent dealing with transportation.
Challis sees that as evidence that the policy has "forever been wrong-minded."
