Bus fears baseless

Photo: Contributed

UPDATE: 10 a.m. Feb 23

Julia Fraser, School District 23 trustee for West Kelowna says there are no plans to bus students from Shannon Lake to Glenrosa Middle School.

Despite fears from some parents, Fraser says there was no discussion at a Planning and Facilities meeting Wednesday suggesting students would be bused.

While it is included in one of the options, Fraser says that option is not the one the committee has recommended to the full board.

"As the trustee for West Kelowna, that is not an option, I would speak very much against it," said Fraser in trying to quell parent's fears.

The committee has recommended the full board vote for a staged grade reconfiguration for schools on the Westside in time for the start of the 2018-2019 school year.

This would see students in K to Grade 5 in elementary school, Grades 6 to 8 in middle schools and nine to 12 in high schools. However, because of a lack of portables at Mount Boucherie, some Grade 9 students would remain at Glenrosa Middle School for an additional year.

The Board of Education for School District 23 will decide next week on grade configuration in West Kelowna.

The district's Planning and Facilities Committee voted 2-1 at a meeting Wednesday to forward the current recommendation on to next week's full board meeting.

Board chair Moyra Baxter says the committee recommended to proceed with grade configuration at the start of the next school year.

The district's goal is to eventually have the entire district under the same grade configuration on kindergarten to Grade 5 in elementary schools, six to eight in middle schools and nine to 12 in high school.

The system was implemented in Rutland in 2015.

"It worked well in Rutland because we had the space at Rutland Senior Secondary. That's one of the reasons why we did it when we did," said Baxter.

"Mount Boucherie will entail putting a large number of portables at Mount Boucherie so we won't get all of the Grade 9s there, we'll have half of the population not being able to go."

She says those Grade 9 students in the southern end of the district would remain at Glenrosa Middle School for an extra year.

That has upset some parents who say students in Shannon Lake would be bused to Glenrosa when Constable Neil Bruce is right down the street.

Other parents are concerned about the short lead time.

"The Grade 5 kids will be ill-prepared for such a big change without a lot of lead time and preparation," one parent wrote. "We are talking about 10-year-olds.

"If they had the entire year to prep, I would have been OK with it."

Regardless of the outcome of next week's vote, Baxter says it doesn't really matter in the end what configuration is used.

"As long as you have the right people in the school and in the classroom looking after the best interests of the students, any grade configuration will work. We know that from history around the province," she said.

"We have kindergarten to Grade 12 schools, we have different configurations even in our district. It will work, as long as once the decision is made, we all put our minds to how do we make it work."