With two new schools opening next year, the Grande Prairie Public School District’s boundaries will be changing. Assistant Superintendent James Robinson says it’s not only children around the new Riverstone and Isabel Campbell Schools that will be affected.
“Our district has been growing and we have a lot of schools that have real significant enrolment pressures. Some of our schools have 120 per cent of their capacity in terms of the number of students there, while neighbours might have only 80 per cent of their capacity, so our job is to balance those resources and make sure that we have enrolments that are appropriate at all levels.”
Letters will be going out to affected families next month, but parents can also check their school’s websites to find out if their children will be switching. Robinson says there will also be some exemptions, like students in French Immersion.
“We though students who were being required to move in the last year of their school, we’re going to give them an opportunity to be grandfathered into the school that they’re in. The only condition is because we’re changing the boundaries, bussing changes as well, so kids who choose to be grandfathered are going to have to be responsible for their own transportation to get there.”
There could also be exemptions made for education purposes, which we be considered in March.
However, Robinson assures parents that the switch won’t be hard on their children.
“It’s natural for people to have anxiety about moving;Â kids love their schools and they love the schools that they’re in. It’s really an opportunity for full cohorts of student if they have to move; no individual students are being moved. It’s neighbourhoods and it’s groups that live within neighbourhoods that are being asked to potentially go to a new school, so kids are going to be moving with their friends.”
A full update on the boundary changes can be found on the Grande Prairie Public School District site.