By mid-November, the Living Sky School Division hopes to have the information they need to hold a public meeting on solutions to overcrowding in the Battlefords elementary schools.
In the meantime, it is submitting a request to the Ministry of Education for a $3 million renovation to prepare the North Battleford Comprehensive High School to house more students in 2013.
Glenn Wouters, a member of the committee charged with time-lining the decision-making process, told fellow education board members last week many people clearly understand the need to alleviate the overcrowding of Battlefords elementary schools and they understand that the Ministry of Education will be expecting them to use space at North Battleford Comprehensive High School.
"That to me is merely factual," said Wouters regarding the possibility of moving Grade 8 students from the elementary schools to underused space at NBCHS.
Whether or not Grade 7 students should be moved to NBCHS as well seems less obvious.
"I will not vote on any motion until I get all the data about the Grade 7s," said Wouters.
"I'm not wanting to 'squeeze in' Grade 7. We need to make sure that if we put the Grade 7s over there we can create that junior high school culture within that building and that it has adequate, good space for those students."
Waiting on information from the Ministry of Education and on architectural plans commissioned by the division, the board expects to have answers to several questions in mid-November.
"Once we know where we sit with that then we can talk about meeting the public and going out there with the information," said Wouters. "It wouldn't be fair to have a public meeting without the information."
Daryl Richter, manager of capital projects for the Ministry of Education made a visit to the community recently to go over the floor plan of NBCHS classroom by classroom.
Lonny Darroch, chief financial officer for the division, said the meeting with Richter was very positive.
"He wants to work with us and one of his comments was he wants to make us as happy as we can be and still keep the ministry happy," said Darroch.
He said they were able to update Richter on the use of space at the high school and how its use is not necessarily accurately reflected by the information the ministry has had to date.
Director of Education Randy Fox said, "We went through the floor plan room by room and identified what those classroom are being used for."
He said, "I think it was very positive. He asked some good questions but he also is very open to getting it right. He made it pretty clear that if we are crowded in our elementary schools, the ministry likely wouldn't support portables and if they are going to support something it would more likely be renovations at the comprehensive high school."
In the meeting, said Fox, "We really tried to emphasis the fact that this was a comprehensive high school and the space was designed to offer programming such as the shop classes and practical applied arts. We really need his support in the ministry when it comes to looking at the total square feet, because any school has the shops like that, that is way beyond what is allocated in today's world for a new school for shop space. We tried to remind him that the school was designed for certain purposes around that whole idea of comprehensive education and he's aware of that."
Fox added, "We talked about what other comprehensive schools have done when they've had renovations and that we don't want to go backwards with programming. If we are going to do any kind of grade configuration, we want to move forward with programming. To have to take a shop and cut in two and use it as two classrooms in our view us a move backwards and we really tried to make those kinds of points."
Darroch said the capital operations manager will probably get the process of updating the ministry's information this summer and they will probably meet with him again in August.
Darroch added, Richter asked for the board to approve a B1 project application for potential renovations to the comprehensive high school to get it on their books.
"It was his suggestion to set it at $3 million, and that would be adjusted when they have more information," said Darroch.
While waiting for the final decisions, Fox said, Battleford Central School, one of the schools most affected by overcrowding, is making some more instruction area available.
"We are converting a computer lab to a mobile lab, at the request of the staff. This will free up an additional teaching area," reported Fox. "We are also looking at possibly offering PAA [Practical Applied Arts] modules to Gradd 7 students. These modules would take place at St. Vital. [Principal] Glen Leask feels that it is not necessary to relocate any other programs for one year, and prefers to keep the S-2 Program at BCS as well as the current Pre-K."
At Connaught Community School, another school faced with overcrowding, unless they get 20 or 25 more kindergarten students than expected, principal Jay Nichol and vice-principal Tonya Lehman plan to carry on and make the best of the situation without trying to have classes in another location, Fox added.
Fox also said he and board chair Ken Arsenault recently met with the Andrew Sneddon, president of the Tri-West Teachers Association, on a number of issues including grade configuration.
"We agreed that it is important to keep teachers informed of the situation, and that regarding the potential transfer of any teachers, we would first look for teachers willing to relocate."
