Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Adel Ahmed

SD73

North Shore, Brock school changes to offer a better distribution of space, students

Jun 20, 2023 | 5:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — It was a plan that was first proposed and now is set to become a reality. The School District 73 Board of Education has given the district the green light to transform more than half a dozen elementary schools in North Kamloops to K-to-7. On top of that, high schools and middle schools will also see some changes, including Brocklehurst Middle School going back to a Grade 8-to-12 high school.

“It really took our staff and the team doing a very extensive review of what was happening on the North Shore, having significant consultation with our employee partners, employee groups, parents and staff who work in those schools as well.” School Board Chair Heather Grieve told CFJC Today.

The school board had a lengthy consultation process. It included 28 focus groups and 10 virtual meetings with school staff and parent advisory councils. The reasoning behind the change is to comply with the growing population in the North Shore.

“Searching for space in a school is difficult,” School District Superintendent Rhonda Nixon told CFJC Today. “We don’t want that for our parents. We don’t want that for our families. When we have counselors or special groups come in to do small group activities, we want that to be readily available and not be struggling in some schools. When the board made the approvals that they did [Monday] evening (June 19) and provided us with the space to actually expand the population to multiple locations, that’s what it did.”

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The new change, which will come into effect in the fall of 2024, has one former student of Brocklehurst Secondary agreeing with the decision, saying the school should have stayed as a high school in the first place.

“Better dynamic for the children… they get more consistency, more familiarity,” the individual said. “It was that way when I went to the school and it just worked. Worked all around for everybody.”

The school district says students and parents will be notified via email of which school they will be designated to for September 2024 next January.