Chinook's Edge School Division superintendent Kurt Sacher says work is ongoing on the preparation of a report on the future of the Benalto Elementary School scheduled to be presented to trustees on April 6.
“My team and myself are working hard to get the board everything it needs to make its own independent decision,” Sacher told the Gazette. “As you can imagine it is a difficult decision.
“My job is to gather all the data that the board has required me to access. We are still finalizing it (the report).”
The report will not include a recommendation on whether the school should be closed or remain open, he said.
There are currently 21 students at the school, with 16 from the Benalto area, two from Spruce View and three from Sylvan Lake.
In 2010 there were 49 students, 52 in 2011, 51 in 2012, 41 in 2013, 39 in 2014 and 27 in 2015.
Declining enrolment at the school has created a situation where Benalto is now by far the most expensive school in the division in terms of cost per student.
In the 2015-16 school year, $15,918.30 will be spent by the division for every student in the school. That compares with an overall division average cost per student of about $8,000.
The decision to examine the viability of the school was made in October 2013.
At the instruction of trustees, a multi-stakeholder review committee has been gathering input from parents, residents, school officials and others.
The committee has considered such things as student access to quality basic education programming, the economic viability of the school, utilization of school buildings, proximity of other schools relative to busing, enrolment trends, and population demographics in the local community.
Hundreds of public comments were collected at a March 3 open house in Benalto. Some of the comments garnered from the questions “What might be the impacts for your child if the school were to close?” and “What might be the social and financial impacts to your community” are as follows:
• Closing the school and having families move could have a major negative impact on these businesses and organizations. This major economic impact will make a big difference.
• I fear that many families may leave town because there is no school.
• It will have both social and education impact on the students.
• We are losing the ability to attract young families.
• The chances for student to witness or be a victim of bullying in larger schools heightens.
• Having to go from a small-town setting to a larger city-like setting would be a difficult adjustment.
• Closing the school reduces the options for families in the Benalto area, which may be detrimental to some students.
Sacher says comments gathered at the March 3 meeting are being considered in preparing the final report for trustees.
“There is a lot of data that we will provide to the board,” he said. “Some of the key things is a really hard look at the educational environment, which we've already relayed to the school community. It's very positive and we are expected to do a full analysis of that.
“We had a couple senior administrators go and observe the school and the classrooms and the teaching. We have the financial components relative to keeping it open versus closing it. There are lots of complexities there that trustees want some background on.”
Busing is another issue being looked at, he said.
“Transportation is typically a big question,” he said. “If they do close it what are the implications from a transportation point of view. If they keep it open there are all of the implications there as to how they move forward.”
Asked if the division has obtained an estimate value of the building and property, “No we don't. We don't believe it to be significant just on the open market. So that isn't likely to be a big-ticket item in that regard.”
The school division is accepting public input as part of the Benalto review until March 29.
