The elected board of trustees overseeing school operations in Sea to Sky country is now officially in place and set to tackle one very sticky school challenge in the year ahead.
Rick Price has been chosen to carry on as the board chair. The vice-chair for the next year is Laura Godfrey.
The two top positions on the board are both held by Squamish residents.
The third Squamish resident on the board is former school administrator Ian Kent.
These three education leaders and the other board members from Whistler, Pemberton and D’Arcy are going to be confronted with interesting challenges in Squamish over the course of this year and the following three years in their elected term.
The number of students at the primary level and coming into kindergarten in the coming years is significant. The student population at the lowest grades is growing at a rate that caused the previous group of trustees to send out a warning to parents that changes have to happen this year in Squamish.
The board of education started dealing with this issue a few years ago and one key part of the strategy was the decision to move all the Grade 7 students in Squamish to Don Ross Secondary.
That move alone hasn’t addressed the numbers issue faced by the school district as the hordes of kids expected to enter our elementary schools is greater than the number moving on to Don Ross Secondary.
Poor old Stawamus Elementary looks like it’s going to figure prominently in whatever the next move is in dealing with this challenge. A news release issued during the election campaign reports the enrollment from the Stawamus Elementary catchment area is declining.
The old board said it wants the new board to consider a range of options. The options could include more reconfiguration, boundary changes, more portable classrooms, shared usage, leasing learning space, site closures or even a property sale.
Without pre-judging what this new board will do about the changing demographics in Squamish, the property most likely to close, if a school closes, is Stawamus Elementary. The school has room for 195 students. Currently, there are only about 75 students attending classes there.
The property has a few strikes against it. First, the school is old and showing its age. Stawamus Elementary was built in 1957. Second, it sits under power lines. Some parents who fear high voltage power lines refuse to send their children to Stawamus.
Whatever happens, Price, Godfrey, Kent and the rest of the school trustees serving our region have some tough choices to make in the coming months.
