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Laura Myles is trying to get her son registered for Kindergarten.
She is one of 27 parents whose children were waitlisted at Chute Lake Elementary - essentially, an entire class of Kindergarten students have been waitlisted for next September.
The school received 67 registrations for kindergarten, 40 were accepted and 27 were put on a waiting list.
Laura Myles is a mother of three and she lives in Kettle Valley.
“Chute Lake has always been at capacity ever since they opened,” said Myles.
“They've always been turning away a few kids, but the difference this year is they're turning away an entire class and a half.”
The children that did get in, already had siblings in the school.
Myles attended the School District 23 meeting held on Wednesday night at Chute Lake Elementary.
She and other parents addressed their concerns at the meeting, suggesting adding portables to Chute Lake Elementary.
“We didn't get a huge amount of feedback at that meeting last night,” said Myles.
Larry Paul, secretary treasurer for SD23 has been meeting with the parents at Chute Lake.
“The concept of trying to move a portable up there, creates a few issues,” said Paul.
“One, there's an expense to move it there when we don't have to. We have a bus that can bring the kids down that's running already. The other side of it is - just the space of where that portable will go because the site's very tight right now.”
Paul also said that moving a portable to Chute Lake Elementary would only exacerbate the problem, as more kids would end up attending the school in portables.
He said that the children who were waitlisted will be encouraged to attend Anne McClymont Elementary School as that’s where students were previously bussed before Chute Lake Elementary opened.
But for parents like Myles and her family, they moved to the Kettle Valley specifically for the community and for the school. Since the KV and surrounding area is continuing to be developed and more families are moving there, the need for more classrooms will continue to be an issue.
Paul says a plan is already set in motion to build a middle school up in the new Ponds development area.
“It will relieve the pressure and take all of the Grade 6’s out of that school, so that will significantly reduce the pressure,” said Paul.
The Okanagan Mission Middle School up at the Ponds is under design with an opening date of September 2019.
“Ultimately we're waiting for the ring road to get built and hopefully building another elementary school at Crawford,” he said.
According to Paul, a lot of these issues stem from the collective agreement, where schools across the province saw a significant reduction in class size.
“We had empty portables and they're basically all spoken for now,” said Paul.
Paul said SD23 is looking at converting about eight computer labs and 20 specialty spaces into classrooms.
“That will still leave us short and we'll still have to somehow buy portables, but we’re submitting that report to the government on Friday and hopefully they will approve it and give us some money to begin that process as well.”
The following meeting at Chute Lake Elementary takes place next Monday at 4 p.m.
As for Myles and the other parents who live near Chute Lake Elementary, they are still hoping to get their kids into that school for September.
“We're going to put as much pressure on them to do what we to get them to add the space to Chute Lake Elementary," said Myles.
Myles also submitted a letter to SD23:
"We are writing to you today because our son is one of the 27 children affected by the waitlisting of Kindergarten students at Chute Lake Elementary. For the 2017-2018 school year, it is our understanding that there are 67 children registered for Kindergarten at Chute Lake Elementary. Of these 67 children, only 40 children have been admitted. The children who were admitted have priority over the others as they have siblings already attending the school. The remaining 27 children have been waitlisted, and we’ve been advised that arrangements will be made to bus them to other schools.
Our family moved to the Kettle Valley area in 2010. We chose Kettle Valley in large part because of the sense of community, a huge component of which was the elementary school that had just recently opened. We have been growing our roots in this community for the past seven years. When our first child was born, we chose to send him to the daycare one block from CLE, so that he could get to know other children that he would later be going to elementary school with, and to facilitate before and after school care once he was school aged. Last year, we attended the ELFF night at CLE, and since that time our son has been increasingly excited about going to Kindergarten at CLE. This year, on registration day, we did everything we could to register as soon as registration opened at 7:00 a.m. The timestamp on our application was 7:00:03 a.m.
Needless to say, we were surprised and upset to learn that our son had been waitlisted at CLE. We were shocked to find out that not only was he waitlisted, but no new Kindergarten students were being admitted, unless they already had a sibling attending the school. To be clear, these are not students who are applying for a specialized program, or applying to attend a school outside of their catchment area. These are children who are just reaching school age who want to attend their local public school along with their friends and neighbours.
Our understanding is that there were three Kindergarten classes at CLE for the 2015-2016 school year. In 2016-2017, Kindergarten registration numbers were lower, and only 2.5 classes were required. This year, the number of Kindergarten classes has been reduced further, with only two classes being created. Thus, the 66 Kindergarten spots that existed two years ago have been reduced to 40 for the upcoming school year. This makes absolutely no sense in an area that is populated by young families, and growing more each year.
We are aware that Chute Lake Elementary is often at capacity. We are also aware that this year is particularly challenging due to the restoration of the 2002 Collective Agreement language, and resulting reduction in class size and change of class composition rules. However, there has to be a better solution than to close the doors of a local school to all new Kindergarten students.
We request that you reconsider this issue, and add the much-needed Kindergarten spots back to Chute Lake Elementary. While the decision was likely made for budgetary reasons, it will have a very real impact on the 27 affected students and their families."
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