EDMONTON – Johnny Bright and Esther Starkman schools in south Edmonton are bursting at the seams, and now families that live within the school attendance area are being told there might not be room for their kindergarten-bound children.
“I was quite surprised when I got the letter in the mail that there were going to be some problems,” says mother of two, Michelle Waddell, who wasn’t told of any capacity concerns when she dropped off the registration for her four year-old daughter, Pallas.
On Friday, Waddell received a letter from school officials saying that enrolment isn’t guaranteed. The letter explains there are “significant enrollment pressures because of the large number of school aged children and the district is in the process of developing an accommodation plan.”
According to school principal Greg Kushnir, there are five options currently being considered:
1. Maintaining the status quo, which would mean operating above capacity.
2. Redesignating one or more grades to another site; for instance, making the school, which is currently K-9, K-6 or 1-9.
3. Shrinking the attendance area.
4. Creating a dual-track school, which has been tried in the U.S. and in eastern Canada. This would mean the school would operate in two shifts: a morning shift (which could potentially run from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) and an afternoon shift (which could run from 2:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.).
5. Setting an ‘optimal enrolment’ limit that would involve a lottery type system to determine who gets into the school; those who don’t get into the school would have another designated school that the district would accommodate them in.
“We will do everything we possibly can to make sure we make the best decision for the most number of people, and the people that are affected – we’ll do everything we can to make the transition is as easy as possible,” Kushnir says.
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The situation still leaves parents like Waddell with numerous concerns – including whether busing and before and after school care will be made available if her child has to go to a school further away.
Edmonton Public Schools Managing Director of Planning, Lorne Parker, says a request has been put in for five new schools to meet the unprecedented population growth. While he would like to see those school immediately, there are currently no plans for construction, and so internal solutions need to be found.
Waddell believes more schools in the area is the only real solution; and would like to see the government make that more of a priority.
“I think (the) Edmonton School Board needs to shift their priorities from renovating buildings where children don’t live, to building schools where children do live.”
Esther Starkman School, at 2717 Terwillegar Way, and Johnny Bright School, at 1331 Rutherford Road, opened in September 2010 and were part of a batch of schools built through a private-public partnership often referred to as a P3. Both schools have now added the maximum number of modular classrooms and portables to their core structures and have expanded to their maximum capacity of 1,050 students.
“We’re doing a full analysis before we recommend a way forward,” Parker maintains.
In the meantime, the principal of Esther Starkman is asking parents to be patient.
“Just hang on,” he says. “We will work with you around trying to find the best out of a bad situation.”
With files from Laurel Clark, Global News and Andrea Sands, Edmonton Journal
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