When all the other Battlefords Grade 7 public school students begin attending North Battleford Comprehensive High School next year, St. Vital Catholic School's Grade 7s will stay put.
The Living Sky School Division board has approved a request by the school's advisory committee to retain Grade 7 in the interest of their students' Catholic education.
In making a decision, board members deferred to the school's unique position. St. Vital Catholic School holds the distinction of being the only Catholic school in the province, perhaps even the country, to be part of a public school division.
To discontinue Grade 7 at St. Vital, along with the rest of the local public elementary schools, would be disruptive to the continuum of a Catholic education, as students who planned to take their high school grades at John Paul II would first have to attend Grade 7 at either NBCHS or one of the community's Light of Christ Catholic School Division's elementary schools.
Trustee Glen Wouters remarks reflected the feelings of the other board members at the Dec. 11 meeting.
"I do not like seeing students having to move to three different schools in three years,” he said. "The other thing is, we respect that community’s right to offer a Catholic education and to make it difficult to do so I don’t think would be the right attitude to take. They’ve worked well with us and they are very supportive.”
But, while board members agreed to the request, they were clear in their intentions to monitor the student numbers at St. Vital to ensure offering Grade 7 continued to be viable.
They also agreed the present admission policy must stay in place. St. Vital has historically been for students who are of or about to become of the Roman Catholic faith. During a presentation to the board on behalf of the Catholic advisory committee last month, Fr. Greg Elder said there had been compassionate exceptions to that policy, but they were very few.
What the board does not want to see is parents applying to send their children to St. Vital because they see it as an alternative to sending them to NBCHS.
