LBPSB: A Long & Winding Road To Go

The evening raised more questions than answers and it is clear that the Board has a long way to go, but it was a sparsely attended meeting with almost as many Board employees as there was parents, and one hopes it is not indicative of parental apathy.

The Board is seeking the guidance of its community, after an in-depth look at various areas of its operations, changing demands from its clientele, and an alarming 15-20% drop of students going from grade 6 to the secondary level and opting for other Boards and to the partially taxpayer-funded private system, which, in itself, could make for an interesting debate.

These meetings come with a PowerPoint presentation to show these above changes. One of the areas, the Board is looking at, is its delivery of French instruction. It shows that with about an equal amount of elementary schools offering both choices, ie. Early Immersion and bilingual, but there is twice the amount of students enrolled in early immersion. Is this a demand for more French instruction? Questions being raised here are if the Board would go to one model across the system, how that effect enrollment would be for those looking for one or the other program that would no longer be offered. Could there be twice as many Immersion schools as bilingual ? One parent mentioned that if one system were offered, it should be immersion as it’s easier for young children to grasp. One parent was concerned that while it’s nice to concentrate on French, she had mentioned that the quality of English spelling has diminished.

On the subject of magnet programs or magnet schools, this was rather informative. Out of that percentage of students from Grade 6 leaving to go to other institutions, about half go to the English private system, with the thinking of a better education or maybe more challenging programs, although I would bet my money on some of BA’s superstar students, who I won’t name but could take on those in the private system, but I digress. Should the Board look at a magnet high school like Royal West, which is like a private school? Would this school siphon off lots of students from other schools close by?

Another solution would be possibly more magnet programs. Currently many schools offer the IBO program, one school has a magnet Science and Tech program, and one has a Sports Etude program, and one an Arts Etude program. Clearly, there is an element of the population that wants more challenges for their students. While studying this, the past year, this committee at the Board felt that it would be preferable for new magnet programs to be community driven.

The Special Needs area is being looked at. There is a rising demand in this area in a context of a declining enrollment. Some comments made were that there are not enough qualified personnel in this area and students who don’t have problems lose valuable class time while those special students are given that needed attention and in some cases can be disruptive. A few people mentioned about refining the current model in terms of dealing with specific problems e.g. behavioral, which can often be a home issue, but still has to be dealt with by the Board. One parent mentioned to us that behavioral issues are as a result of an increased amount of broken homes, custodial issues, thus many kids needing that attention and this problem won’t go away. A Long and Winding Road To Go.