Parents leery of losing school
Meeting with GNWT top priority for parents
after facilities meeting with Yk1
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, April 18, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
If there was a singular question on the minds of parents attending a meeting Wednesday to discuss the future of Yellowknife's largest school district, it boiled down to this: what are they going to get in return for giving up a school?
Anne Mobach, one of around 60 parents who attended a public meeting Wednesday evening at William McDonald Middle School, discusses with other parents on the benefits of having a middle school in the city. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo |
The meeting, held Wednesday night at William McDonald Middle School - identified last fall as a possible solution in the territorial government's need to expand facilities for Yellowknife's francophone population - drew a crowd of approximately 60 parents, plus several teachers and other staff from Yelllowknife Education District No.1.
The district is feeling pressure from the GNWT to hand over one of its schools so it could be transferred to the French school district without having to spend up to $28 million to build gyms and other expanded facilities in Yellowknife and Hay River - as ordered by the NWT Supreme Court in 2012.
"It's hard to have a discussion about this without knowing what we're going to get from the GNWT if we transfer a school, or the consequences if we don't," said Lisa Seagrave.
"It's naive to think that there won't be repercussions if we don't give up a school."
"If we give up a school, we could lose programs, or services, or both," said Al McDonald, summarizing a discussion he had with other parents during the meeting.
Wednesday's meeting was the first of several Yk1's facilities committee has planned this spring. It involved an information session, general discussion of the government's facilities proposal and questions posed to parents asking, for example, whether the district should consider changing grade configurations in its schools, and whether or not the district could transfer a school facility to the GNWT and still meet the needs of its students.
The facilities committee was formed after the GNWT made a proposal to Yk1 last fall requesting that the district transfer one of its under-utilized schools to the territorial government. William McDonald, which has the lowest enrolment numbers in the district at 31 per cent, sits next door to the French school district's Ecole Allain St-Cyr, which lacks a gym among other amenities.
Other schools, such as J.H. Sissons and Mildred Hall, were also suggested by the GNWT to be transferred and retrofitted in order to meet the needs of the kindergarten to Grade 12 students who currently occupy Allain St-Cyr.
Joanne McGrath and Tammy Allison, two representatives from the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment were at the meeting but were only there to observe, they said.
"There needs to be a meeting where someone from the GNWT is standing right up there with (facilities committee members) and answering our questions," said one parent from the crowd.
During a discussion in which parents were split into three groups, parents Seagrave, Myra Robertson, Anne Mobach, William McDonald teacher Lynn Lalonde and other parents agreed that the meeting with the GNWT would need to happen before the facilities committee could gave their recommendations to the board of trustees in June.
While the possibility of a school transfer was a hot topic for parents, it wasn't the main purpose of the meeting, which the committee said was a long-overdue discussion about the future of Yk1 facilities.
"This is not just about the school swap, it's planning for the future and I want to emphasize future," said Heather Clarke, chair of the committee.
"Right now it's still business as usual in our schools."
Along with the need for answers from the GNWT, another controversial topic parents discussed was the potential to change grade configurations in the district.
Currently, Yk1 has two schools that cover preschool to Grade 5, two with preschool to Grade 8, and William McDonald, available to students in grades 6 to 8. Kalemi Dene school in Ndilo goes from kindergarten to Grade 12, and Kaw Tay Whee school in Dettah has preschool to Grade 6.
Grade reconfiguration could mean many things, but parents all said they would rather have a middle school than be without one.
"Having the choice between kindergarten to Grade 5, kindergarten to Grade 8 and middle school is great, just the fact that we have a choice," said Seagrave.
Priorities parents highlighted during the group discussions will be gathered by the committee and used, along with feedback from future meetings, to provide recommendations to the Yk1 board of trustees during the June board meeting.
