School District 20, along with all other school districts in British Columbia, are having great difficulty balancing their budgets due to a combination of decreased enrollments and the Ministry of Education’s current funding formula of funding on a FTE (full-time equivalent, or per student) basis. Knowing this was coming down the road, SD20 started the Planning for the Future process in 2008. Part 1 consisted of a review of projected student enrolment, space utilization and budget implications. Part 2 put forward possible scenarios, stating that “To continue to fund quality education in classrooms, changes in school configurations and/or closures need to occur in the Castlegar, Greater Trail and Rossland areas…”
PFF2 puts forward several scenarios, including:

  • Closing Castlegar Primary and reconfiguring the grades at other Castlegar schools to accommodate those students;
  • Consolidating Glenmerry and Webster Elementary Schools into the Trail Middle School building, as K-6. Reconfiguring Fruitvale Elementary as K-6 and JL Crowe High School as 7-12. Closing and disposing of Webster Elementary and moving the alternate programs to Glenmerry.
  • Reconfiguring Rossland Secondary School as a K-12 school, with the closing and disposing of MacLean Elementary.

While parents of students RSS and MacLean had definite concerns about closing MacLean school and combining primary, intermediate and secondary students in the RSS building, as well as the proposal to do the initial renovations for only $400,000, in general, they were relieved the district appeared to be supporting K-12 education in some form in Rossland. Trail and Warfield parents were not so relieved about the proposal to remove elementary students from Glenmerry and Webster, resulting in an angry public meeting and many submissions being sent to the SD20 website promoting the closure of RSS instead of Webster and Glenmerry. It is because of these submissions that VSS has realized that we cannot take the long-term existence of K-12 education in Rossland for granted, and that we must work hard to find solutions that will work for our children, our community, and the entire district. We believe we can find solutions to this budget problem that will not involve the closing of any schools in the district — in Rossland, Trail or Castlegar — there have been enough closures already. _

“Why not design neighbourhoods around a school that kids can walk to again? In the 1960s two-thirds of all kids walked to school. Today it’s 13 percent. Think about that. Just a walk to school is all the physical exercise that they need in a single day, to walk to and from school.”

— Premier Gordon Campbell, in his address to the UBCM

75% of MacLean Elementary and Rossland Secondary students are able to walk to school daily. We hope to keep it that way.

Where would students be placed if RSS were closed?

One proposal, made by Roland Vogel, a parent and lawyer in Trail, would have the Trail Middle School reopened with the Grade 8s and 9s from RSS and Crowe, and the Grade 10s, 11s & 12s all attend Crowe. The Ministry capacity for the TMS as a middle school is 291; therefore it would clearly not be large enough to accommodate all Grade 8s and 9s, as there are currently 417. It would be several years before they could all fit. As well, the ministry now fines school districts for not meeting “green” initiatives. Portables do not meet levels required and therefore have fees to run them, over and above the regular maintenance.

Having only Grades 10, 11, 12 at Crowe would underutilize Crowe, as the Ministry capacity is 825. There are currently 672 Grade 10s, 11s and 12s with the enrolment estimated at 602 in 2012/12, putting it at 72% and it will only get worse from there. What is the financial and educational advantage of closing one school to open another they can’t all fit in, and give another less capacity?

Closing RSS to reopen TMS will save some money, of course, because TMS is a newer facility, but 80-88% of SD20’s costs are salaries. Having all the 8s to 12s at TMS and Crowe, as opposed to RSS and Crowe, will require the same amount of teachers and administrators. There may be a small reduction in custodial wages, but there is the added cost of busing. Each new school bus costs approximately $120,000, and you must also factor in employee costs, insurance, maintenance and repairs, fuel, etc. RSS would still have to be maintained and heated, even if it’s no longer used as a school. Consider: Sunningdale has sat empty for six years and costs the district around $20,000 each year.

As well, there is the impact the loss of RSS would have on the Francophone school. These kids and families are an important part of our RSS family. Will the École Sept-Sommets parents enroll their kids in SD20 after grade 6 if RSS doesn’t exist? If not, this amounts to a huge loss in potential cultural and educational diversity, not to mention in funding revenue for SD20. There are several K-12 francophone schools in the province already.

Closing the RSS building would include the loss to the community of the large auditorium, the cafeteria and kitchen facilities, and the large gymnasium — schools are not being built with facilities of this size and quality any more.

 

Doesn’t it make more sense to keep our children in the schools they’re in, look for Neighbourhoods of Learning partners to utilize space and help cover operating costs, and keep pushing the ministry to update RSS to make it an updated, energy efficient building in the future?

What can I, as a parent, do to help?

  • Become informed! Go through this website (click on the links at the top or bottom of this page for each section — the Questions & Answers section has the most information), and read the Planning for the Future submissions on the SD20 website. If you have limited time, be sure to read Neighbourhoods of Learning Questions, as that’s the direction we are headed in to keep K-12 education in Rossland.
  • Write a submission with your opinions to SD20. It is past the deadline for posting them online, but they will always accept input from the public. There are not many submissions from Rossland, compared to the other communities in the district. It is important the trustees understand how important K-12 education is to citizens of Rossland. Email them to: dnicoletti(at)sd20.bc.ca
  • Get involved with VSS, and help with any of the many tasks that the committee is working on.
  • Write the provincial government asking them to rework their funding formula for education. FTE funding does not work for small, rural school districts.
  • If you would like to make an comments on this website, please click LOG IN on the left, and sign up for wordpress, using your name. We invite open communication and welcome all opinions on this site, but would prefer that participants not use an alias. If you have any questions, please email rosslandvss@gmail.com

VSS would like to thank the School District 20 Board for their willingness to work with the public and take their input seriously. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the district to develop a plan for education that we hope will work well for our children, community and the entire district.

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Click on the document names below to download them:

Planning for the Future document

Planning for the Future Powerpoint presentation

Planning for the Future Part 2 document

Planning for the Future Part 2 Powerpoint Presentation

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