Deciding to close a school is the “most uncomfortable thing” a trustee can do, says Lance Bean, vice-president of the Saskatchewan School Trustees Association.
The bitterness that can be left in a community has caused some trustees to quit. Meanwhile, others are re-elected because the voters recognize they were doing the job as honourably as they could.
“No one goes in expecting or wanting to deal with this,” Bean said.
While some parents have said school board amalgamations are driving the closures, Bean said the reality is that when there are no children left, it doesn’t make sense to hang onto a school.
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That’s the “alarming” trend in Bean’s area of south-central Saskatchewan, from Moose Jaw to the American border. A survey in 2001 showed that within five years the area was going to lose 25 percent of its student population.
Ivan Yackel, director of education for Bean’s Thunder Creek School Division, said there is no pleasant way to close a school, just a variety of unpleasant ways. He said the most important part is to ensure the public sees it as an “open and transparent process.”
Yackel said closures are not a new trend.
“There were 5,000 schools in Saskatchewan at one time and there are 800 now.”
There are no statistics about rural school closures, said Michelle Mulder, president of the Alberta School Boards Association. But “we’ve seen a definite demographic trend” and “in our provincial meetings (of trustees) we hear a lot about the heartache of keeping rural schools open.”
There are other options to school closures and increased bus travel times, she said. In a sparsely populated area of southern Alberta, a mechanical and welding lab has been mounted onto a semi-truck. The truck drives to various schools during the week offering a mobile education.
In her rural community of Holden, Alta., the school has turned to on-line learning to keep up its quality of education. She noted it is ironic because this French course delivered to Alberta kids by computer is taught by a teacher based in Saskatchewan.
Other options include grouping students from two grades into one classroom or keeping the elementary school open in one town and the high school open in the neighbouring community.
When closure is inevitable, boards have eased the transition by selling the school building to the community for $1. The community can then keep a library and gymnasium open as a social centre.
