|
Accommodation Review Committee recommends keeping all three public elementary schools open in Kincardine By Liz Dadson |
Education To Comment on this article Click Here |
||||
|
The Kincardine/Port Elgin Accommodation Review Committee thought it had a good recommendation to make to the Bluewater District School Board, regarding the public elementary schools in Kincardine. The review was prompted by over-crowding at Elgin Market Public School, under-capacity at Huron Heights Public School and Kincardine Township-Tiverton Public School, space needed for the provincially-mandated full-day Kindergarten program, and a shortfall in operating costs. Kincardine District Secondary School and Saugeen District Secondary School, which shares programming with KDSS, were both included in the review as well. During a working meeting April 18, the committee agreed to recommend to the school board that all three Kincardine schools remain open. Elgin Market would become a French Immersion school. KTTPS would be a primary school (Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3) and Huron Heights would be a junior/intermediate school (Grades 4-8). At the public meeting, held last night (April 27) at Huron Heights, committee chairman Richard Yun said the benefits to this solution are: it has strong parent, community and local business support, it has flexibility in case of future growth, it provides space for special programs such as music, developmental learning and technical, and it has fewer capital costs. The disadvantages, said Yun, are that the operating losses continue, and students are spread across three buildings. He noted that if this area had 50 fewer students to deal with, it would be simple to switch to a two-school option. However, the disadvantage there is that closing schools indicates a community is not growing. Right now, projections show that in the 2011-12 school year, there will be 274 students at Elgin Market, 213 at Huron Heights, and 178 at KTTPS. Any changes made by the board would not be implemented until the 2012-13 school year. If Elgin Market became a French Immersion school, that would be a first for the board, said Yun. The advantages are: the students would be in a true immersion setting, it will attract more students, it's the right size for anticipated numbers, fewer busing issues, room for full-day Kindergarten, keep the team of French Immersion teachers and the resources together, and French Immersion schools are growing in other communities. On the down side, it creates a separate French Immersion community, a small school population especially in the high grades initially, and it will take work to build the program. The advantages for KTTPS and Huron Heights are: no boundary changes, classmates move together, more students of same grades together, fewer split classes, teachers working together, and using a model that already works in Kincardine. On the down side, the students have to transition from one school to the other from Grade 3 to Grade 4. Yun said the committee struggled with the idea of submitting just the one recommendation, and came up with an alternate option. The two-school option would see Elgin Market closed, and KTTPS become a dual-track (English and French Immersion) primary school, and Huron Heights a dual-track junior/intermediate school. During the question period, Mary Senese, a teacher at Elgin Market, said it's important to keep the French and English students together. "If you're truly concerned with what's best for the students, stick to a dual-track system." Evelyn Venner, the French Immersion representative on the Elgin Market Home and School Association, said she was contacted by numerous people when the three-school option was presented April 18. "Some parents said they had never been asked or informed of what was happening," said Venner. "Some felt they have no ability to make a decision, and some were indifferent." She said there are 103 French Immersion students and she spoke to the parents of 60. "When we pull our children out of this program, your lead class won't have 11 students, it'll have five," she said. "We're not prepared to put our children in a school without any peers." Venner said the majority of the respondents, 60 per cent, said they do not want their children separated. "They should be with their friends, playing together," she said.
|
Shari Farrell, one of the the Elgin Market representatives on the committee, said the students could have joint activities and sports teams with Huron Heights. "In fact, we could co-ordinate activities among the three schools," she said. "It's not a perfect solution, but we did consider many of those things." Tiffany Rutledge said she is a French Immersion teacher with a child in French Immersion. "I firmly believe in it and support it," she said, "but I'm not sure I could put my children in a situation where they have no English peers to just be a kid with." Darren Maurer, also an Elgin Market representative, said the committee looked at the numbers projected for French Immersion which is 200 students. That fit perfectly with the capacity at Elgin Market of 194 students. "Our only other option was to consider changing boundaries but we were told that wasn't a good idea either," he said. Tom Desmond, a parent, said he has talked to fellow workers about this accommodation review committee, and if parents claim to be uninformed, it's their own fault. "There is no shortage of information at this meeting if you just get off the couch and come out to it," he said. "If those 60 French Immersion parents are so concerned that they are going to pull their kids out of that program, why are they not here? These meetings should be packed, if students are really the top priority. "I don't care which school our children go to, they are going to get a good education. And I congratulate the members of the Accommodation Review Committee for all the work they have done." "We did discuss concerns about the French Immersion students," said Kincardine deputy mayor Anne Eadie, "but we should leave it to the school board to decide how best to provide the program to those students." She said Kincardine is an area of growth, particularly around Elgin Market school, so the board should think twice before closing it. Eadie has also contacted Huron-Bruce MPP Carol Mitchell to find out why Kincardine schools don't get the rural subsidy, like those in Saugeen Shores. Yun said the committee will address the issue of whether to submit both the three-school option, and the alternate option of a two-school solution, before May 18 when the recommendation goes to the board. That announcement will be made through the media. The committee will make a presentation to the board June 7, and the board will make its decision by Oct. 18. Scrolling stops when you move your mouse inside the scroll area. You can click on the ads for more
|
||||
|
 for
world news,
books, sports, movies ...Wednesday, April 27, 2011 |
