Hundreds of Robert Rundle and Wild Rose students would switch schools this fall under a proposed grade shakeup prompted by provincial budget cuts.
Wild Rose and Robert Rundle parents received letters earlier this month from St. Albert Public superintendent Krimsen Sumners inviting them to open houses this week to discuss a change in grade configuration at their schools.
St. Albert Public currently has about 450 elementary students in the Grandin/Heritage region split between Wild Rose and Robert Rundle, Sumners said. That makes for two pretty small schools that are tough to run affordably. Sir George Simpson (which is next to Rundle), meanwhile, has a space crunch due to its booming French Immersion population.
Last fall’s cuts to education funding made these pressures more acute, and there’s little chance those cuts will be reversed, Sumners said. Based on budget projections, the board won’t be able to afford to run Rundle and Wild Rose as they are now, and would instead have to turn every class into a split grade of 30-odd students.
“Split classes are not optimal,” Sumners said, and would not give students the best education.
The board does not want to close either school because it needs all the space it can get, Sumners said. Even if it did, neither school has the capacity to hold all 450 students. They could add a new program (say, Mandarin) to boost enrolment, but that would take money they don’t have.
Grade swap
To avoid split grades, the board proposes to swap grades between the two schools.
Starting this fall, Wild Rose would become a K-3 school and Robert Rundle a 4-6. Wild Rose would become a K-4 school in two years, with Rundle and Simpson becoming a 5-9 “campus” where Simpson students could use extra rooms at Rundle.
“We are looking for cost efficiency,” Sumners said, adding the savings from this plan could let them hire more staff at Rundle and Wild Rose.
Sumners said this swap would see about 115 Grade 1 to 3 students move to Wild Rose and about 100 Grade 4 to 6 ones move to Rundle if it happened today. Wild Rose and Rundle would still have 30-student classes after the move, but no split grades.
Sumners said this swap could let students meet more people their age and allow same-grade teachers to do more work together, but it could also split up friends and families. The board hopes to have a shuttle bus between the schools to help parents who otherwise might have to drop kids off at both schools.
Sumners said the board won’t know if it needs to make this swap until the province tables its next budget, but plans to move Rundle’s Kindergarten program to Wild Rose this fall just in case. The board is holding these open houses to give parents time to think and comment on the proposal.
Robert Rundle parent council member Brittany Morse didn’t support the proposed swap.
“We live right across the school from Robert Rundle,” she said, and she liked the idea of all three of her kids walking to school together.
“I’m really displeased it’s come to this decision.”
The swap makes sense given the board’s budgetary position, said Ellyn Figley, past president of the Wild Rose Parent Society. It could also let students at Rundle learn music in Simpson’s band room and socialize with more people their age.
“I definitely don’t want to have a giant class of 35 kids that’s a split class,” she said, and the school might close entirely if nothing is done.
Parents can hear more about the proposed swap at two open houses this week: one at Wild Rose on Jan. 28 and the other at Rundle on Jan. 30. Both are at 6:30 p.m.
