After years of declining enrolment and losing over 25 per cent of its student numbers, the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District is facing space and capacity challenges in several areas, including Enderby, Armstrong and Salmon Arm.
At the board of education meeting Tuesday, Nov. 21 at Pleasant Valley Secondary School in Armstrong, Superintendent Peter Jory reported that in the interest of effective site management and planning, it is necessary to do regular enrolment reviews, and increasing student population combined with the restored teacher collective agreement language has raised the importance of such processes.
Capacity concerns have been identified in Armstrong, Enderby and Salmon Arm. Remedies put in place at Armstrong — only kindergarten registrations and no cross-boundary transfers with students being referred to nearby Highland Park — and Enderby — moving Grade 7 cohort to A.L. Fortune, adding a bus route to Grindrod and adding a portable — have stabilized the capacity concerns at this time.
“I am pleased to see that the M.V. Beattie transition has gone well,” Jory said. “I appreciate all the work that has gone into making this happen.”
Salmon Arm has three sites, Bastion, Hillcrest and Shuswap Middle School, where projections show the school enrolment may go over capacity in the near future. He noted consideration and planning will likely be required in the Salmon Arm area. Possible solutions could include any one, or a combination of, ideas including redrawing of K-5 catchment boundaries, reopening South Canoe school site as a regular school or program of choice, establish a single track French Immersion school, purchase of portables or further reconfiguration of K-12 schools in the area.
The school district has recently engaged with Barager Systems to assist the district with demographic reporting and planning. Jory added that before exploring potential costs and benefits, a review of updated Barager data will be required.
“Before we go any further we need more accurate data and further conversations,” Jory said. “We will be reviewing the information again in the next few months.”
Strategic Plan update
Extensive work on a new strategic plan for the school district is almost complete.
“The district has gone through an extensive process,” Jory said. “Information was collected and galvanized into some goals by the working group with the help of the consultation team.”
He noted a strategic plan draft was created and taken back out to the public and staff for further input. The draft will now go back to the working group for some word-smithing.
“Hopefully, there will just be a few tweaks and finishing touches and then it will be brought to the board for approval,” said Jory, adding that once approved it will be used over the next five years to help guide educational and budget decisions.
Trustee Mike McKay seconded Jory’s words that the strategic plan was an important lens to view all of the district’s decisions.
“If the strategic plan sits on the shelf and gathers dust it will be an expensive folly, McKay said. “It must be the lens that important district decisions are viewed through.”
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