PHRD decides tomorrow on high school program

Woodlands County is setting the record straight with its involvement in the potential closure of the senior high school program and Fort Assiniboine School.

Deputy Mayor Leann Caron said Woodlands County made no financial offer to Pembina Hills Regional Division No. 7. She clarified the fact that the county discussed with PHRD the desire to find a solution, and to see if there was something that could be done this year to allow the program to remain open for this coming term. By allowing that to happen, all parties involved could work toward a long-term sustainable solution.

Pembina Hills provided to Woodlands County a figure of $320,000 per year to successfully run the senior high school program, which affects students in grades 10, 11 and 12. It was not Woodlands County that offered to pay that amount to the school board, she said.

Woodlands County tabled a motion to consider looking at some sort of funding for the current year, Caron said, but that motion was defeated 5-2. The next motion that was passed was to reject the board’s ($320,000) offer, and to seek an explanation as to how they came up with that figure.

Woodlands County understands the position in which Pembina Hills has found itself regarding Fort Assiniboine School, Caron said. It’s a funding issue, and that’s a problem, she said, because it’s about dollars.

PHRD Superintendent of Schools Egbert Stang said the board is open to exploring all options to keep the program running. He said the board appreciates the County’s attempt to step up.

Caron said in the County’s view, the real ground roots problem lies in the fact the school funding model does not work for rural schools.

“There are rural schools dropping like flies all over the province,” she said. “What we’re trying to achieve is a commitment from the provincial government to look at new methods of funding that will sustain rural schools into the future. That’s all we can hope for.”

As a municipality, it is not within the means of Woodlands County to find a solution for this particular issue, she said. The County can offer to help in any way possible, but it’s not the County’s issue.

“It’s the funding model that’s killing rural schools,” Caron said. “Clearly, it’s not working any more, and that’s unfortunate. Rural schools cannot provide the student base that an urban school can, and that’s the reality. But, it doesn’t mean we should get rid of all the rural schools because we don’t have the population.”

A school is the foundation of any small community, she added. Without that school, there wouldn’t be a community. The issue at the forefront of Fort Assiniboine School revolved specifically around the senior high school program, but it’s the first step in a negative direction, and could cause a domino effect, she said.

“With no school, people will start moving out of the community,” she said. “It’s really difficult to stay in a small community with no school.”

Pembina Hills secretary treasure Tracy Meunier said the issue with lack of funding for schools can be traced back to 1995 when the province regionalized school divisions. For PHRD, that move brought under one roof the divisions of Westlock, Swan Hills and County of Barrhead schools. The province stipulated that divisions needed a critical mass of 5,000 students in order to be viable. When PHRD was regionalized, it had a critical mass of 5,400 students from kindergarten to Grade 12, Meunier said. Today, that number is down to 4,040 students, and the board is projecting that to decline to 3,888.

“When you have a system built on a critical mass of 5,000 students, all of a sudden, 16 years later, the majority of them are under 5,000 and the model has been tweaked, but not overhauled, of course jurisdictions are struggling,” Meunier said. ““When you take a look at numbers for the province, it’s scary the number of schools that are below 5,000. It’s happening all over the province.”

“Everyone loves their schools and their grade configurations where they are, and no one likes to change, and when you have to change even grade configurations, it makes communities very nervous. This puts divisions in a real tough spot. We have lost more than 1,300 students since the board was regionalized, so there’s a lot of pressure for us to serve communities and keep the same programs.”

Meunier said the board took its enrolment data and plotted it by area and discovered that of the 1,300 students the board has lost, the greatest decline occurred in Pembina Hills west. PHRD has lost one-third of the student population in its Barr-head schools since 1995, while Fort Assiniboine and Swan Hills have both lost about 50 per cent of their student population since regionalization.

As for the eastern end, which incorporates the Westlock, Busby and Clyde areas, they are stable and in some cases, they are growing a bit, Meunier said, adding the board remains cautiously optimistic about its east end, because it’s closer to the city. She said Westlock Elementary School has grown by about 80 students, and it’s PHRD’s hope that those children will stay in that community and make it to R.F. Staples. Neerlandia is holding its own, and that’s because it has the alternate Christian program that fills a niche, she said.

Provincial enrolment numbers are apparently going up, Stang said, but that’s happening in Edmonton, Calgary and down the Highway 2 corridor. It’s a clear indication of urbanization of society, and the reality is, the current generation doesn’t want to live in rural Alberta, he said.

“Families are smaller, people are waiting longer to have babies, and they are choosing to live close to the urban centres so they can have a larger selection of services,” Stang said.

“The future is going to prove to be a huge challenge for the province,” Meunier said.

The school board will be hosting its business meeting at its regional office in Barrhead tomorrow; however, trustees will move into the Senior’s Drop-In Centre for the portion of the meeting dealing with the Fort Assiniboine School issue. It is anticipated that the meeting will draw in numerous members of the public, so the board is looking to accommodate them with more room.

That being said, Stang said once that meeting starts, no one from the public is allowed to address trustees about the closure. This portion of the meeting will strictly be for trustees to make their decision.

“We’ve followed the procedures to a T, as set in our administrative procedure,” Meunier said. “We will accept letters and concern up until the start of the meeting.”

In the event that a school does close, it doesn’t mean the building has to be torn down. Meunier said there is potential to develop those buildings into something that could be of benefit to the community. By doing so, it could draw more people into that community and, in turn, add to the potential student population.

“We have been working for the past year with Woodlands County where they would lease the public library situated within Fort Assiniboine School,” Meunier said. “As well, they would lease space for the pre-school program. The lease value would help cover the shortfall in maintenance for that building, which would prevent us from having to go in and right size it, because we can’t afford to maintain it any more.

“Our plant operations and maintenance funding is based on student enrolment and utilization of a building; therefore, if we can find willing and paying partners, we can keep those buildings intact. But, in a perfect world, we would love it if our schools stabilized.”