Parents met with the principal to discuss the future of English Grade 8 at Rossland Summit School last Thursday night.
The meeting came about after English Grade 8 and 9 classes had to be cancelled this school year following low enrolment.
“Last year we didn’t retain enough Grade 7s going into Grade 8 for the [school] district to be able to say fiscally that we could run a Grade 8 class,” explained Patrick Kinghorn, principal at Rossland Summit School (RSS). “There were about five or six kids left.”
RSS still has a program for Grade 8 and 9 French Immersion students this year.
The situation has raised concerns among parents of this school year’s Grade 7 students as to whether or not there will be an English Grade 8 cohort next year.
Kinghorn assured parents that RSS is still a K-9 school and that the school would like to have an English Grade 8 program for 2018-19. But to do so they will need about 15 students.
“I confirmed with the superintendent, Bill Ford, that number is, for him, to make it fiscally doable — I’m using that word fiscal because that’s the word he used — that we would need about 15 kids,” explained Kinghorn.
Asked to confirm this, Ford wrote “There’s no exact number. But 15 would likely get considered.” He added that RSS will remain a K-9 school “until such time that the Board determines a configuration change is warranted.”
The superintendent was contacted following the meeting to offer the school district’s perspective.
Ford explained that this school year, 100 per cent of Grade 8 and 9 English students transferred from RSS to Crowe. The reasons parents and students gave for the transfers, as noted on their transfer forms, from most to least frequent, were “social; academic program opportunities; extra-curricular opportunities.”
“We continue to hear over and over again from kids and families that RSS students in Grades 8 and 9 want a different social experience than what they have at RSS; there is an allure of the ‘big school’ with older students that many find enticing; that, plus the fact that Rossland kids that head down to Crowe typically have a good experience, and you end up with most wanting to leave RSS to head down the hill,” Ford wrote.
The meeting at the school also featured a special guest: Aaron McKenzie, principal at J.L. Crowe Secondary.
McKenzie and Kinghorn previously worked together at Kinnaird Middle School and presented a unified front at the meeting.
Asked by a parent if his school was “pretty much full,” McKenzie spoke to the fact that Crowe is nearing its capacity.
“It’s built for 850 and I’ve been there at 830 and it’s tight,” he said. “And right now we’re about 760.”
Parents at the meeting asked about a deadline for when families need to make a decision and Kinghorn and McKenzie explained that there really isn’t one. Students can transfer at any time.
Which makes it harder for principals to organize their schools.
“In the past, at this school let’s say, I’ve organized the school, I have teachers in classrooms, and I have class lists made and everything, and then in the first week of school five people show up and all of a sudden I have to reshuffle the deck … and move four kids into different classrooms. Because we have those class size and composition numbers and we have to make sure that we maintain space for new kids,” explained Kinghorn. “So the first two weeks of September can be a wild ride.”
This also puts parents in a difficult position, as up until Sept. 30 they could be informed at any time that they need to transfer their child out of the catchment.
Ford confirmed that such is the case.
“Let’s use an example. Let’s say that there are 20 Grade 7 students going into Grade 8. Transfer requests start to be submitted for approval to the Board Office in March. By the end of June, there are eight students left at RSS going into Grade 8,” he wrote. “At that time, Board Office staff would work with the school to determine whether or not the eight students can viably stay (for example, could we make a Grade 7/8 combined class). If yes, there is a viable option to stay at RSS, the Board Office staff would work with families to determine what is best for their child. If there is no viable option for the students to stay, then families would be contacted and supported to transition their child to Crowe. Families in Rossland also have the Seven Summits option. All families also have distance education as an option (online coursework).”
RSS is the catchment area for Rossland students from kindergarten to Grade 9. Students entering Grade 8 can also choose to transfer to Crowe (a different catchment) or the Seven Summits Centre for Learning (an entirely different school district).
Parents who choose to transfer their children to Crowe must put in a transfer request, which then needs to be approved by School District 20.
Parents who attended last Thursday’s meeting wanted to know why SD20 was approving transfers to the detriment of programs at RSS, but Ford said SD20 doesn’t have a choice.
“This is governed by the School Act,” he wrote. “As long as there is room in a school (grade), and the school can meet the child’s learning needs, the transfer will be approved.”
One parent also suggested that RSS needed to be able to offer students entering English Grade 8 and 9 “a carrot” — some reason why they as students should want to stay at RSS.
“I think there have to be some serious carrots for the kids, at a kid level and I mean, parents can be brought in too with the teachers, and the programming and options for band and sports,” she said.
Another parent suggested that Red Mountain Resort could support keeping Grade 8 and 9 at RSS by offering a deal to students.
“We lived in Banff for a year and [Mt.] Norquay Ski Resort outside Banff offered a free ski pass to the kids who go to school in Banff. How about partnering with Red Mountain and offering the Grade 8 and 9s who stay here some sort of a deal,” he said.
“That is a big carrot,” said the first parent.
Grade 7 students leaving Webster Elementary School in Warfield also have the option of transferring to RSS, which could help boost numbers for a Grade 8 program.
But Kinghorn said he isn’t able to act as a recruiter and Ford said that SD20 has had no request from a student going into Grade 8 or 9 to attend RSS rather than Crowe in the nine years he’s been with the district.
One proposal put forward was that RSS should approach SD20 about having an orientation day for students outside Rossland, just as Crowe does.
Ford said, “the district will have to take that suggestion under advisement.”
Parents also proposed that there should be a deadline for transfers to make it easier for parents to plan for their children’s school year and that there should have to be a meeting with the homeschool before a transfer is approved.
“From a management perspective, having a hard deadline for student transfer request would be great. However, given school choice, again, as long as there is room at a school, a family can apply for a transfer at any time during a school year,” Ford responded.
Kari Kuznecov, president of the RSS Parent Advisory Council (PAC), put forward the idea that as RSS is a K-9 school any student wanting to attend Grades 8 and 9 there should be accommodated, regardless of the number of students.
“I was feeling bad that the pressure is being put on the kids to say who’s going, who’s not and I just felt that if we’re a K-9 school, anyone who wants to come to this school for Grade 8 and 9 should be able to,” she said.
Other parents also agreed that the situation was putting unnecessary pressure on the kids and that the situation was not conducive to learning.
For his part, Ford emphasized that it is not up to the district whether kids stay or go.
“What we have seen occur over the past number of years are kids and families voting with their feet,” he wrote. “They are choosing to leave RSS. The district is not forcing the issue. If kids were choosing to stay, the school would have a viable grade 8 and 9 English program.”
