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By Dylana Kneeshaw

NEW SCHOOLS NEEDED

SD73 looks to spread out crowded students as it awaits capital funding

May 4, 2021 | 4:34 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops-Thompson School District is asking parents for their feedback as they look to change catchment area boundaries and reopen a shuttered elementary school.

By 2022, there could be new boundaries in place for student catchment of Sa-Hali Secondary and South Kam, Aberdeen and Pacific Way Elementary, Dallas and RL Clemitson, and Juniper Ridge and Marion Schilling Elementary.

A series of parent consultation sessions about the ramifications of changing boundaries is wrapping up this week before a decision is made later in June.

SD73 Superintendent Terry Sullivan says brand new schools in Kamloops are still years away, and with an overpopulated student body, the district wants to change catchment boundaries to balance out the swelling.

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“This is going to spread some of the pain around a little bit as far as enrollment, but it’s not going to solve the problem until we have a significant infusion of capital.”

Several schools in Kamloops have already gone well over 100 per cent capacity. Board Chair Rhonda Kershaw notes that for schools approaching 180 per cent capacity, portable classrooms are no longer feasible.

“We could put portables there forever but the reality is that there is no gym time, and there’s not enough bathrooms,” she says.

An enrolment decrease was expected at one point in Kamloops, as was an increase in 2014. However, a 2017 Supreme Court decision on class size and composition meant excess space to absorb this fluctuation was used up by the addition of 90 classrooms.

“We’re full,” says Kershaw. “We have had some compounding circumstances, but we have added about 250 students per year since 2014. And you know, an average elementary school (population) in Kamloops is 350 students.”

It’s been more than a decade since Ralph Bell Elementary was closed due to declining enrolment. Now the district has the opposite problem, and wants to look at re-opening the school.

“Even with the opening of Ralph Bell, I expect in a few years that Ralph Bell would also be seeing some portables at that school even after reopening it,” stresses Sullivan. “But if we don’t do anything then all of those portables of course would be loaded into Juniper Ridge Elementary School.”

With a growing civic population, the city is echoing the district’s calls for capital funding. Mayor Ken Christian says the municipality is ready to help find space when Kamloops gets picked for new builds.

“We’ve done a number of things — school acquisition charges are now in place to support new school sites specifically in the Aberdeen area and in the Batchelor area but that’s going to be a long term solution.”

Sullivan says even with catchment area adjustments, Ralph Bell reopening, Parkcrest Elementary being rebuilt, and the expansion opening at Valleyview Secondary, the district will still be overflowing.

“We need a new school in Juniper Ridge, we need two new schools in Aberdeen, we need a new high school in Aberdeen,” he notes, “so we have a number of things that we have to do.”

It will be a bit of a juggling act with parent and student considerations, but the district reiterates catchment area changes won’t come into effect until the fall of 2022.