Parents once again find themselves appealing to school board trustees for compassion, not because their neighbourhood school might close, but because brothers and sisters might have to go to different schools.
It seems as if we have been thrown a demographic curve ball, but parents and administrators are going to have to face the difficult decisions that come with this unfamiliar world of burgeoning student populations.
The Greater Victoria School District expects 2,000 more students in the next 10 years, bringing its total to 21,000.
As the crunch becomes more of a problem, the district is looking at revising the rules on who gets priority when assigning seats in the local school.
As the rules stand, returning students get first crack at their school, regardless of whether they live in the catchment area or not. After them, their siblings get in, and then students who live in the catchment area.
When the district surveyed parents about how to address the shortage of space, 61 per cent wanted to switch the priorities. They said catchment students should get in before siblings.
The potential headaches for parents are obvious. If elementary-aged children are scattered among two or three schools, getting them all to class would be challenging. Logistics aside, many parents want their children to be able to watch out for each other at school.
The ideal is for every child to go to a neighbourhood school. That’s not possible because of enrolment numbers and programs such as French immersion, which are not offered in every school.
The board is still pondering the issue and talking to parents. It’s not a decision anyone relishes having to make.
One way to ease the pressure would be to open more schools. Between 2003 and 2007, the Greater Victoria district closed seven elementary schools.
As in districts across Canada, closures were hard on everyone, with angry and tearful parents pleading for their local schools to be spared when administrators and trustees looked at the cold reality of the numbers.
If opening schools is the way to solve the problem, the district must move with care to avoid a roller-coaster of openings and closings. Few of the parents from 2003-07 are likely to have children still in school, but those who follow them don’t want to go through the closure ordeal a few years down the road.
However, with all those children expected to arrive in the next few years, there must be classroom space for them. The Supreme Court ruling that ended the province’s dispute with teachers over class size and composition is another reason that more classrooms will likely be needed.
Those classrooms will have to come from somewhere, and portables aren’t a long-term solution. Too many portables will tax the washrooms, gyms and libraries of schools that were built for smaller student populations.
But re-opening schools is at least a year away, if it happens at all. In the meantime, the sibling question has to be addressed.
District superintendent Piet Langstraat said: “Having to choose between the sibling and the other catchment child, I’m hoping actually won’t end off having to be a decision, that we’ll be able to accommodate both.”
Parents throughout the district have the same hope.
