None of the Sechelt elementary schools will close next fall, but students from Sechelt Elementary will be amalgamated into Kinnikinnick during repairs and upgrades at Sechelt, and Davis Bay Elementary will be annexed to Kinnikinnick, and likely offer only kindergarten through Grade 5.
School District 46 (SD46) launched the school closure debate last year, to address a sharp decline in student enrolment on the Sunshine Coast. And at a public school board meeting at Chatelech Secondary School Tuesday night, Feb. 16, bylaws to close Sechelt, Davis Bay and Kinnikinnick were scheduled to come forward for final readings and - for any that passed - adoption.
But in an 11th-hour twist to the closure debate, school officials announced a new district-wide funding and school configuration scheme, a fresh interpretation of the school closure bylaw and a host of new options to sidestep closures.
At the meeting, SD46 superintendent Deborah Palmer introduced the evening's first significant new piece of information: a shift towards a "family grouping" funding and school configuration model, which would divide the Coast into three separate clusters of schools: the Pender Harbour area schools including Halfmoon Bay Elementary, the Sechelt area schools and the Gibsons area schools. In each cluster, she said, principals will sit down to decide how to structure each school, based on the area's enrolment and class size targets.
"We've said to our principals, 'We need to rebuild from the ground up,'" Palmer said, explaining that this could mean some schools would operate as kindergarten through Grade 5 or kindergarten through Grade 3. Small schools, she said, will be annexed to a larger school - meaning that their budgets would be pooled and distributed centrally - to ensure equitable funding distribution between smaller and larger schools.
School board chair Silas White introduced the second new element of the evening: a fresh take on the school closure bylaw. The bylaw, he pointed out, talks about "the closing, for a period exceeding 12 months, of a school building used for the purposes of providing an educational program to students."
But at Sechelt Elementary, he said, moving the kindergarten to Grade 7 program would still leave two "educational programs": the Sunshine Coast Alternative School - a Dogwood diploma-granting secondary program, which Palmer said can't be moved without gravely disrupting its students, who already face other challenges - and the pre-kindergarten StrongStart program.
"So this puts us in quite a serious dilemma in moving towards permanent closure [of Sechelt Elementary] by the Ministry [of Education]'s definition," White said.
White went on to explain, however, that there was a loophole: a school could be closed for the purposes of repairs or renovations, without being deemed to be permanently closed.
Building on this foundation, trustee Ken Sinnott painted a word picture of how, perhaps, the district could "make lemonade" out of the lemons of declining enrolment and Ministry funding cuts.
"Why not leave Sechelt Elem-entary School open?" he asked, explaining that the school is on the Ministry's capital plan for seismic upgrades, and students in the kindergarten to Grade 7 program could be moved to Kinnikinnick for the duration of the upgrades.
Next, Sinnott turned his attention to Davis Bay.
"We could annex Davis Bay to Kinnikinnick, put in a 0.5 VP, we could look at Davis Bay and see if it would be better as a K-6 or even a K-5. Who knows?" he said.
Sinnott concluded by emphasizing that there were still options - beyond closure - available to the district.
Trustee Lori Fielding picked up on this theme and pointed out that West Sechelt Elementary is projected to reach 45 per cent beyond capacity in five years' time.
"We don't want to move portables in, and if we close schools, we limit our options in how we configure our classrooms in days and years to come," she said.
Beyond that, she said, the Ministry is not only launching full-day kindergarten next year, but is planning to expand the school system to include four year olds within five years.
"We do need to be careful," she said. "We do need additional space."
Trustees unanimously defeated the motion to close Sechelt.
When the discussion turned to possibly closing Davis Bay, trustee Fran Heppell argued that there is a point where a school is too small to be viable.
"On the best advice that we have been given by the educators of this school district, I believe that in the interests of all the students, it is imperative to consolidate Kinnikinnick, Sechelt and Davis Bay school communities to give the best opportunities to provide for the educational needs of all," she said.
Trustee Greg Russell expanded on this idea.
"I don't like the idea of having what I'll call a two-tier education system, where a kid who happens to go to Gibsons [Elementary] or Roberts Creek [Elementary] has more opportunities than at a smaller school," he said.
The motion to close Davis Bay was defeated, with Russell and Heppell supporting it. The motion to close Kinnikinnick was defeated unanimously. Trustees then passed a motion to amalgamate Sechelt Elementary students into Kinnikinnick next fall, for repair work.
As the meeting came to a close, many faces amongst the 50-plus attendees registered surprise at the turn of events. A few, belonging to parents at Sechelt Elementary school, registered distress.
"It seemed that they were willing to try to come up with creative solutions for Davis Bay, but it wasn't really so much for Sechelt," said Lennea Perpet, treasurer for Sechelt's Parent Advisory Committee.
A true amalgamation of all three schools, she said, would have put all students on equal footing, allowing them to re-name a school and start afresh together. This way, she said, Sechelt kids will arrive at Kinnikinnick as a minority group of new kids.
"We felt a little let down that our kids seemed to be the sacrificial lambs," she said.
