LOMOND, Alta.- When Lomond parents heard their high school will close at the end of June, they resolved to fight the decision all the way.
Lomond School has been threatened with closure before and this southern Alberta community has always fought back. But that was in the past. Now, as the Ralph Klein government makes sweeping changes to Alberta education, the bells may cease to ring at the school.
Lomond, a village of 177, serves a farm population of about 500. It has one of the two high schools in the County of Vulcan. In a county system, school and municipal matters are handled by the same administration.
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The county school board’s decision stems from a formula called critical enrolment. The most recent minimum enrolment numbers established by the board were 32 high school students, 30 junior high school and 28 elementary pupils. Parents say if a total enrolment number of 90 was used, they’d exceed the requirement.
Committee formed
To fight closure a parent committee called Save Our School has been formed. Committee chair Marie Logan says a recent parent meeting gave the nod to do whatever it takes to keep the school open.
Options include applying for charter school status, getting legal advice, meeting with government as well as writing letters to education minister Halvar Jonson and the MLA, Barry McFarland. The parents also asked the province to redraw the educational boundaries to remove Lomond from the County of Vulcan jurisdiction.
Eighty percent of their children live south and east of Lomond, a 50-kilometre trip from Vulcan. The eastern students are closer to Brooks and the southern students are closer to Vauxhall or Picture Butte.
Logan has fought this issue before and is concerned about children on lengthy bus rides over uncertain road conditions.
Some Lomond school children already board a bus at 7:30 a.m. Even with express buses parents worry that some will travel up to an hour to get to Lomond and then transfer for a 45-minute ride to Vulcan.
“Some kids could easily be over three hours a day on a bus,” said Logan.
“What upset our area was that Nobleford school (in the County of Lethbridge) was up for closure and Lethbridge basically said wait for regionalization (before making a decision).”
She said they’ve been told Lomond Elementary would remain open to spare younger children long bus rides.
For others it’s more than concerns over busing. Losing the school could be the beginning of the end. It discourages new people from buying a nearby farm or home in Lomond. The business community and sports programs also decline because people do business where their children attend school.
“We really feel in this area that the school is one of the cornerstones to keeping small communities alive. Losing the high school might not be a big deal in some people’s eyes but we feel basically that we can’t stop the chain reaction,” said Logan.
The provincial education act is being amended and Logan hopes there will be provisions for small schools in sparsely populated areas.
Alberta Education representative Garth Norris says new legislation will lay out how taxes are handled, types of schools allowed and administrative matters such as regionalization which merges 140 school boards into 60. This is expected to save administrative costs but is not the reason some schools may close.
“Regionalization has nothing to do with whether or not schools stay open,” Norris said.
The county is talking regionalization with the Municipal District of Foothills south of Calgary.
Also within the new legislation, school taxes will follow the children and are forwarded to their school boards.
“Funding from the provincial government goes to school boards, not to individual schools. Then school boards allocate the money to their schools within their jurisdiction,” Norris said.
If a child transfers out of the school district, under the plan the new school board will be funded, he said. How parents deliver their children to a different school out of their designated area may be their responsibility.
Logan thinks tax dollars following students will make a difference.
“At $5,500 a student, if you’re going to look at it in strictly monetary terms, when regionalization goes in next year, these children are valuable commodities. I think other areas are going to be willing to send buses in to pick these students up,” said Logan.
High-tech learning
Rather than closure, the parents want a chance to try new technology for students in remote areas. They’ve been a pilot school for distance education for the last seven years, says parent Carol Birch.
They want to try high-tech learning using master teachers, fibre optics and computer networks.
County councillor Smoky Jones of Division Six which serves the area, argues that small schools with strong community support such as Lomond can run more efficiently than larger schools.
Jones argues no in-depth studies have been done on how critical enrolment numbers are arrived at or what the true costs and efficiencies are in closing Lomond.
Ed Fischer, a village trustee who resigned over the closure issue, said potential students have been lost because parents heard rumors that the school would close.
