SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
All of the Catholic school district's Grade 8 students will go to high school a year early in a bid to remedy over-crowding at St. Joseph School.
Simone Gessler stands in the corridor between Weledeh School and St. Patrick High School, which will become a dedicated Grade 8 hallway administered by the high school next year. -
Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
The pre-kindergarten-to-Grade-8 school on Range Lake Road is at 90 per cent capacity, prompting a transfer of roughly 100 Grade 8 students from both St. Joe's and Weledeh to St. Patrick High School, which is joined by a four-classroom corridor to Weledeh School.
Claudia Parker, Yellowknife Catholic Schools (YCS) superintendent, said the board has been wrestling with its capacity problem for several months, and recently sent a letter to parents of Grade 8 students informing them of the new plan.
"We mentioned it to the (education) department that we're going to have some space issues coming up in the next couple years," said Parker. "And so we started meeting with the department in December. We've met with the minister of education and the deputy minister ... and they basically asked us to take a look at what we could do from within for now."
Parker said YCS was initially looking at bringing portables over from N.J. Macpherson School or leasing space from Yellowknife Education District No. 1 but when those options were put to the territorial government the YCS board was asked to find a solution within its own district, said Parker.
Tina Schauerte, chair of St. Joe's Parent Advisory Committee (PAC), said options to alleviate the overcrowded school were discussed at a meeting earlier in the month.
She found out yesterday about the decision to bus the Grade 8 program, including two English classes, two French classes, plus faculty, from St. Joe's to the high school across town.
"This is the solution for now until something else can be done," she said. "I think the kids ... were a little apprehensive at first but now they're excited."
Susan Waddell, co-chair of the Weledeh PAC, said she's concerned Grade 8 students aren't mature enough to be attending high school. She said she hopes the Grade 8s can be kept separate from the high school population.
"I don't think they're quite ready to be in that environment ... (or) to be at that high school independence level yet," she said. "I don't think that the maturity level is quite there."
Schauerte said a public meeting to discuss the plan is set for tomorrow night at 7 p.m., at St. Pat's.
Simon Taylor, chairperson for YCS, said the growing capacity issue was centre of the agenda at a committee-of-the-whole board meeting last week.
"It's an opportunity for the Grade 8s," he said."It will be Grade 8 facilities and schedule and so on but administered by the high school."
Coleen McDonald, St. Pat's principal, said she's excited to have more students under her administration.
"It will obviously increase our numbers, and we certainly have the capacity to have the Grade 8s here," she said.
"It will give us a lot of numbers that will increase our existing programs: French Immersion, and our band program."
Right now St. Pat's is at 88 per cent capacity.
She said it'll be a change for the new students although having younger students at St. Pat's isn't necessarily new. The school was a Grade 7 to Grade 12 for a period of time, in the 1980s, she said.
Grades to be administered by YCS in September
- Weledeh School: will be a pre-kindergarten to Grade 7 school
- St. Joseph School: will be a pre-kindergarten to Grade 7 school
- St. Patrick School: will be a Grade 8 to Grade 12 school
Source: Yellowknife Catholic Schools
