astephenson@medicinehatnews.com
The final bell rang for another rural Alberta community on Tuesday as the board of the Prairie Rose School Division voted 6-4 to close Bindloss School.
A small group of parents gathered in the board room to hear the decision, which will see the small school — which has two full-time teachers and 16 students in Grades K to 9 — permanently close its doors on June 30, 2010.
All of the board members emphasized that the decision was difficult, but necessary in light of future enrolment projections.
“There becomes a tipping point where it is no longer realistic for these small schools to stay open,” said trustee Arnold Frank, adding he believes students will be better served going to school in nearby Acadia Valley, where they will have more opportunities for social interaction and a wider range of extra-curricular activities to choose from.
Trustees acknowledged that in many cases, closing the local school is equivalent to sounding the death knell for a community.
“I live in a community without a school, and I know what that does,” said trustee Georgine Westgard, who is from Sibbald., Alta.
“But on the other hand, we are in the business of educating students — it’s not in our mandate to have an economic development plan.”
However, parent Koralee Crocker — who has two children who attend Bindloss School — told the News the board didn’t give the community a fair chance.
“I’m angry,” Crocker said after the meeting. “I think the board is incredibly short-sighted.”
Crocker said the board didn’t take into consideration a new initiative launched by the SAMDA Economic Partnership that is aimed at enticing people to move to rural communities like Bindloss. She added that the board also rejected a proposal from parents that the division’s attendance area boundaries be changed so that some students in the Empress area — all of whom currently go to school in Acadia Valley — could attend Bindloss instead.
However, superintendent Doug Nicholls said Empress-area parents just weren’t interested in that option.
“At the end of the day, there have been very few requests for that to happen,” he said.
The Prairie Rose School Division, like other local school divisions, is facing financial challenges this year due to cutbacks from the provincial government and the results of a recent teachers’ salary arbitration ruling. But Nicholls told the News the division reviews its small schools every year to gauge whether they are still viable.
“So to say that this was simply a budget decision would be inaccurate, but certainly it’s a factor,” he said.
In fact, Prairie Rose closed two other small schools in the past three years, even before provincial cutbacks started putting a squeeze on the division’s finances. The board voted to close Manyberries School last year, and C.J. Peacock in Cereal in 2007.
Nicholls said the declining population of rural Alberta presents a constant challenge for his rural-based school division.
“It’s very difficult for Prairie Rose to deal with this,” he said. “We still have several schools under 70 students. Those populations seem to be fairly stable, and in some cases increasing, which is a healthy sign for the future of those schools. We’re optimistic that decisions like this won’t have to be made for some time in Prairie Rose.”
The only trustees who voted against the closure motion were Marian Peers, the representative for Bindloss, and Kathy Cooper, who represents Manyberries and voted against the closure of its school in 2009. Trustee Graeme Dennis was absent.