The Living Sky School Division board continued a long discussion about bus routes April 4, and though they did not reach any definite conclusions, they have pledged to review their policy.
The board also praised the provincial government's handling of complaints about funding structures, while stressing that the funding model is itself broken.
The discussion started in earnest at the previous meeting, at which a couple had asked the school board to allow their child to go to a school despite not living within the school's attendance boundary. The discussion continued weeks later, without any definite conclusions reached.
At the April 4 meeting, the board continued discussion of the couple's request, in addition to reviewing their transportation policy and another similar request from a different student. A nine page policy document was consulted frequently, with neither side of the argument agreeing on how exactly it should be interpreted.
Garth Link and Roy Challis argued that the school division's job is to help students, and that it should thus do everything in its power to allow students to go to whichever school they wanted to. This was especially true if students wanted to go to a school outside its attendance area for programming not offered at their school.
Students in Edmonton, they argued, go to whichever high school they want, and the federal government provides funding for anyone who wants to go to a French-language school.
Link argued especially forcefully for allowing students to go to whichever school they wanted.
"We talk about a lot of things here in terms of commitment to this and that, etc. etc. The elephant in the room is that if we give people a choice in where they want to go to school, then there's going to be some repercussions. But maybe that's what should happen. Maybe we should let parents make the decision about where they find the best programming for their kids. And I don't think it's impossible to do."
The rest of the board argued that changing the policies, even slightly, would "open the floodgates," creating severe overcrowding in some schools and underuse in others.
Without coming to any conclusions regarding overall transportation policy, the board nevertheless pledged to review it. Board chair Ken Arsenault stated that the review would likely take about a year. But based on the discussions that have taken place, the review could result in major policy changes, and could affect rural and urban students.
In the same meeting the board also expressed approval of the way the provincial government had handled the board's complaints about the current school funding model. After local MLAs met with the school board, the government essentially gave school boards more time to deal with the proposed changes to the funding structure.
"Democracy does work, once in a while," Glenn Wouters explained.
But Challis was careful to argue that the provincial government had not gone far enough, echoing the board's earlier concerns that the funding model was fundamentally broken.
"One message that we didn't get across is that the funding model is wrong, and we're still stuck with it. Here you have the two school divisions with the most First Nations living within its boundaries being punished by this model. It just flies in the face of all of Mr. Wall's commentary about changing the achievement gap. You need to have the resources to do that."
