Saskatchewan students returned to classrooms this week but many travelled unfamiliar bus routes and hallways along the way.
The spate of school closures announced in the spring has resulted in new routines for hundreds of students. And some may still change.
Parents from Glenavon, southeast of Regina, and officials from Prairie Valley School Division were scheduled to be in court Aug. 28 over busing issues. That’s the day after classes began.
The parents want their children to attend school in Wolseley, but the division plans to bus them to Montmartre.
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At a school board meeting earlier this month the board tabled a request from parents that the decision be reversed. Board chair Rod Luhning said members wanted the legal challenge resolved first. Elsewhere in the division, parents of students at Kennedy Langbank have asked to leave Prairie Valley and join Southeast Cornerstone School Division.
Grades 9 through 12 were eliminated at Kennedy Langbank at the end of the last school year. The students are to move to Kipling.
But the community said the decision would not result in any savings because the loss of 2.5 teachers at Kennedy Langbank would be met with an increase of two teachers at Kipling.
Southeast Cornerstone did not close any schools or cut any grades this year. Instead, it identified that 12 of its 41 schools were under review and then set out to get more information. It will discuss that information in October.
Prairie Valley tabled its discussion of releasing Kennedy Langbank until September. The province’s learning minister would make the final decision.
Meanwhile, a judge agreed earlier this month that Prairie Valley was indeed able to close the school in Wilcox.
Parents had challenged that decision, claiming they weren’t adequately or fairly consulted and that not enough notice was given of a school community council election.
The judge ruled that the consultation had been done fairly and that an extra two days election notice wouldn’t have likely changed the result.
Twenty Saskatchewan schools, most of them in rural areas, closed this year. Three others are slated to close in 2008 and another in 2009.
