Plans and boundaries for two new schools slated to open this September in Bedford — a suburban community in Halifax — have been finalized after a two-month long virtual town hall.
The final report shows more than 2,500 participants took part in the consultation process, but not all parents are happy with the results.
Since Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) released the plan, a petition has started for families expressing “major concern and disappointment” over the new boundary lines.
The finalized plan includes a revised boundary map, new grade configurations and an opportunity for students within the catchment area to chose which high school they’d like to attend.
The province announced the pre-primary to Grade 8 school in April 2018 as a way to address overcrowding in the classrooms. In 2019, the province further announced a new high school at the same site on Broad Street off Larry Uteck Boulevard.
The two schools — known as the Broad Street schools — come after years of exponential growth in the area and enrolment pressures.
Data from the the existing Charles P. Allen family of schools shows actual enrolment over the past five years have met or exceeded expectations.
Over the past few years, HRCE has had to shuffle some students to other schools while waiting for these new ones to be built.
The Broad Street schools were highly anticipated, but their proposed boundaries had some families frustrated.
Specifically, residents of the Stonington Park neighbourhood of West Bedford were anticipating their children would be able to attend the new schools, only to find they were cut out of the proposed boundaries.
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The revised boundary released this month now stretches to include Stonington Park.
“Overwhelmingly, we heard that, when possible, families and students want to attend their neighbourhood schools for several reasons,” the report stated.
Those reasons include being able to walk to school and not having to take a bus.
But families in the Transom Drive, Starboard Drive and Fleetview Drive neighbourhood are voicing their concerns — after their homes were removed from the proposed boundary map. The online petition is calling for “verifiable data and analysis to support the final boundary decision.”
The petition calls the consultation process “flawed,” in part because there was no way to verify that feedback gathered was actually from people within the community and it was “not represented as a need for a confirmation or re-iteration of a boundary that already included our children.”
Haibo Niu, a parent of a Grade 4 student, was one of the people who signed the petition.
“How can you value one neighbourhood over the other?” Niu told Global News.
“You already put it out there (we were within the Broad Street boundary) and removed us without letting us know.”
Parents are also concerned about the grade configuration changes, which includes removing pre-primary from Bedford South School.
“The pre-primary program has been an available option for children in our community and families will now have to face the difficult option of choosing between incurring additional costs for childcare or go through the emotional stress of having younger children attend a school so far from home without the company of older siblings,” the petition states.
HRCE’s original plan was also to take a few years to transition into the final grade configurations at the existing and new schools.
However, after the town hall, HRCE said all changes will now be in effect for September of this year.
“Many families said they are frustrated with constant change and short-term solutions which have a negative impact on their children.” the report found.
All Grade 9 students currently attending Rocky Lake Junior High and Madeline Symonds Middle School will get to choose which high school they would like to attend for the next school year. Grade 10 students at the exiting Charles P. Allen High School (CPA) will also get to choose where they go this year. Meanwhile, Grade 11 students will be continuing at CPA for their final year.
The goal is to introduce different programming options at each of the high schools. Those details will be released later.
HRCE concluded by saying that “much has changed” since the Broad Street schools were first announced.
“From a global pandemic to disruptions in building material supply chains to tremendous population growth in the CPA FOS (family of schools), we’ve worked through many complex challenges. We sincerely appreciate your understanding, your support and most importantly, your contributions to this process.”
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