Less than a year after losing their school, Wilcox, Sask., residents have established a new Catholic school division.
The former public school in the village closed last June after the Prairie Valley School Division deemed its enrolment of about 50 unsustainable.
The school had only been in the division for a year, operating on its own for years before it was forcibly amalgamated into the new larger school divisions implemented by the former NDP government.
Other schools among the 20 closed across the province last year have been permanently closed or sold.
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The Wilcox elementary students were bused to Milestone, about 20 kilometres away, despite the availability of a high school in their own village.
But Catholics in the Milestone school attendance area voted Feb. 27 to establish their own school division and board.
Mark Weisshaar is on the steering committee. He said 117 people voted with 94 in favour, 22 against and one ballot was spoiled.
He said it made sense to keep a school open in the community perhaps best known as the home of the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame private boarding school for secondary students.
“Our industry is education,” Weisshaar said.
The new division, known as St. Augustine Roman Catholic Separate School Division, will form its own board of five people – one rural representative, two people from Wilcox and two from Milestone.
Then, it will attempt to amalgamate with a larger Catholic school board in Regina, Moose Jaw or Weyburn so it can obtain the services of speech pathologists and psychologists.
And, it needs to talk to Prairie Valley to obtain the use of the school.
“We’re hoping they will negotiate on our behalf to get the school back,” Weisshaar said of joining with a larger division.
Some communities that lost schools haven’t been able to retain them.
The Prairie South division recently announced it sold its Willow Bunch school for $7,000 to an investor from British Columbia who also purchased the Crane Valley school.
The communities of Limerick and Briercrest each bought their schools for $1.
Weisshaar said there is an alternate site selected should the school not be available. He expects all the students to be back this fall.
Right now, 32 are bused to Milestone and 17 are home-schooled.
In a way, Wilcox is going back to the future. A separate school division existed before but joined with the public school when tax revenue declined.
When Wilcox school closed its doors last June, most of the students attending were Catholic.
“We’re looking forward to have our kids back in our community,” Weisshaar said.
So far, Wilcox is the only community in Saskatchewan to establish its own separate school division. Weisshaar said the process is set out in the Education Act.
“The steps have to be followed right to the T,” he said. “It was probably not as difficult as we thought it was going to be.”
