Maintaining viability in rural education

BOYLE - Looking to the future, how do rural schools maintain their viability? 

It’s a simple question with complex answers that Boyle mayor Colin Derko posed to Aspen View Public Schools Supt. Neil O’Shea and board of trustees chair Candy Nikipelo, as village council welcomed the two to their March 3 regular meeting for an overview of 2020 from the school division’s perspective, which included a lot of challenges and changes. 

Not only did COVID-19 cause a ripple in the normal functioning of the division, but there was also a vote on forming a new Catholic school in the area, a change to the education funding formula, and the closure of the high school in Grassland. 

“My concern when I see a school like Grassland go down, and because times have changed, and I'm sure times are gonna change again, is there anything that you can think of that we can do as a community, other than growth, obviously, to make sure our school stays important and viable and we're not shipping our kids to other communities?” Derko asked. 

Grade 10-12 students in Grassland are now busing to Boyle School, while Grassland School continues to offer classes to K-9 students. Nikipelo reflected on what a hard decision that was to make after public consultations brought out impassioned pleas from community members, who saw the closure of the high school as a slippery slope, and a blow to their own sustainability. 

“The community fought hard for that junior high, and I swear I probably lost five years of my own life, having to go through all of that and listen to all the stories and, some of the stories from the families, and it's a very proud community as every community is,” said Nikipelo. 

“When we look at the enrolment numbers in Boyle we see that they've levelled and they've actually increased a little bit in the last two years … at 241,” O’Shea added. “Boyle has a strong community, it's got some active businesses, it's got families that are growing and staying in the area. I don't know that there's an immediate threat that like in Boyle.” 

Rural sustainability is a big part of what Aspen View is going to be advocating for in the coming years. A good example of that is the school division’s lobbying effort to change the provincial funding formula, which gained the support of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) to go forward with it, and it was adopted. 

“That’s one thing that we really pushed and advocated for as a board was a new funding formula, and it took years,” said Nikipelo. “It took seven years for that to change, so we're pretty proud of that, because it did help rural Alberta a little bit more.” 

With that formula being more favourable to rural divisions than in the past, it’s going to be a matter of marketing as a dynamic and diverse region with bountiful opportunities (including post-secondary opportunities with Athabasca University, Portage and Northern Lakes colleges), along with the opportunity to enjoy the natural space, recreation and general lifestyle that is available here. 

“People are in our communities because they want to be. Those are the communities they were raised in, or they left urban centres to come out into rural Alberta because they like the way of life. I think that's one of the things that we can do jointly is continue to promote that,” said O’Shea. 

Reliable broadband services are also essential, not only to learning, but to maintaining a connection to other people.  

“We just want to keep our schools successful and we want to turn out successful people into our world that are that are going to take over from us. One day, they'll be the next village council perhaps, or the next school trustees, and we just hope that we, as a school division, turn out some really good people into the world,” said Nikipelo. 

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