In January 2012, students at M.V. Beattie Elementary in Enderby celebrated the construction of their new school. Just over five years later, the school is already wrestling with overcapacity issues. The elementary is expected to need two or three extra classrooms next year.
“Class sizes have changed for next year so there are fewer students that are allowed to be in each class. That’s a great thing to have fewer students in a class, but that means we need more classroom space,” explained Carl Cooper, a director of instruction with the North Okanagan – Shuswap School District.
The school district has suggested four possible solutions including using portables or telling kids from out of M.V. Beattie’s catchment area they must return to their designated schools.
However, many parents are concerned about the fourth proposal that would move Grade 7, and perhaps even Grade 6 students to the local high school.
“We just feel they are too young. My daughter will be 10 years old going into Grade 6 and we feel that they haven’t planned any of this out,” said parent Sherie Baird.
The school district said the time to iron out the details of what an expanded high school would look like is after the decision on dealing with overcapacity at M.V. Beattie is made.
“We do need to do a little bit of work right now for sure about outlining some possibilities and ideas and we have some. But I don’t want to prejudge options before they are decided by the board,” Cooper said.
However, some parents said sending younger kids to high school has been rejected by the Enderby community once before.
“We do not want our Grade 6, 7 students going to the high school,” said Zev Tiefenbach, whose children go to school in nearby Grindrod.
“That was a statement that the community overwhelmingly made two years ago. So now for the school district to come back to this community with a plan to send those students, those Grade 6 and 7 students, to the high school shows a lack of listening from the administration.”
The district said sending younger kids to high school is on the table again because the situation has changed.
“It is clear to me that no solution will make everybody happy, but we will do our very best to come up with the best solution,” Cooper said.
The school district said all options are being considered including some outside-the-box solutions like moving other programming out of the school.
A final decision on how to deal with the capacity crunch at M.V. Beattie is expected in mid-May.
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