Sun West Communication: Kindersley Education Opportunities

The town of Kindersley has been planning a second phase to their Multi-Use Facility.  This planning process has provided community organizations an opportunity to examine possible partnerships that could benefit citizens of all ages.  Our Sun West School Division has taken part in these planning discussions and is quite excited at the many educational opportunities that could present themselves within the community.

One of the partnership discussions has been between our school division and the Great Plains College.  These discussions have led to some exciting partnership projects that are now underway.  For example, the Sun West School Division and the Great Plains College are in the process of developing an online Power Engineering program.  This program would provide students with an opportunity to achieve industry standard credentials such as a Power Engineer Class 4 by the time they graduate from high school.   There are many other partnership opportunities that are being explored that provide students with high school credits while at the same time allowing students to gain post-secondary credits and/or industry standard certificates.  Stay tuned for more announcements on exciting new educational programming options that will be developed within this partnership mode.

During discussions with the Town, other partnerships were explored that would allow our schools to take advantage of newly developed recreational and fine arts facilities that might be contained in the new Multi-Use Facility.  Specifically, partnerships around developing and running Fine Arts and Sports related academies that could operate within the town’s Multi-Use Facility have been discussed. Academies are typically programs that allow students to develop in-depth skills in specified fields through focused skill development programs.  For example, a Fine Arts Academy might be a program that has students spending more time in arts related courses such as band, choir, dance, drama and art.  A Sports Academy might have students developing enhanced skills in various sports like hockey, baseball, soccer and court sports.  Two essential ingredients are required in order to take advantage of such academies.  The first is having the facilities to allow for skill development while the other is having a “critical mass” of student numbers that allow for viable program options.   The eventual building of the next phase to the Multi-Use Facility will satisfy the facility portion of the equation.  In order to have the necessary “critical mass” of students for viable options we would have to consolidate our students into same grade schools.  All of our present grade 8 to 12 students are housed in our Kindersley Composite School while students in our middle years of education are presently split between two schools, Westberry and Elizabeth.  Restructuring these schools would allow us to consolidate those numbers so that we did have the “critical numbers” required for offering program choices to students.

Presently, Westberry School has 9 groupings to manage, Pre-K through to grade 7.  Elizabeth School has 8 groupings to work with, Kindergarten through to grade 7. Our Composite School manages 5 groupings, grade 8 through 12.  The following table represents student enrolment numbers for the 2014-2015 school year should we maintain the present school structure in Kindersley.

School	Pre-K	K	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Westberry	32	32	44	26	31	24	39	26	35	289
Elizabeth	0	39	32	31	30	39	28	29	41	269
School	8	9	10	11	12					Total
Composite	70	69	77	76	68					360

If we were to restructure our elementary schools so that we could consolidate student numbers into grade groupings to provide more “critical mass” as far as student numbers were concerned, the following table shows a possible grade grouping structure for the 2014-2015 school year.  It would make sense to make Elizabeth School the middle level school due to its proximity to the Multi-Use Facility.

 

School	Pre-K	K	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Westberry	32	71	76	57	61					297
Elizabeth						63	67	55	76	261

By restructuring our elementary schools one can see how the “critical mass” of student enrolments per grade significantly changes.  This then allows the schools to consider offering educational choices that are not really possible in the present structure.  As mentioned above, the ability to offer academies such as Fine Arts and/or Sports at the middle levels school become feasible.   This type of structure also provides flexibility at the primary level school for educational programming offerings not presently available like language programming, for example.  Programs such as French Immersion are perhaps more feasible given the “critical mass” at each grade level allowing possible choice.

There do appear to be other significant strengths in consolidating same age students in a school.  School administrators have more options available in setting up their class structures.  Professional learning teams of teachers teaching the same grade level become a reality.  Teachers have more opportunity to specialize at a certain age or grade level.  Pre-K students get to remain together entering Kindergarten as all Kindergarten students would be attending the same school.  Principals can further refine and focus professional development activities over fewer grade levels.   Same age students in Kindersley all go to the same school thereby strengthening bonds and friendships throughout the community.

Restructuring our elementary schools might also create some challenges. Students in close proximity to their present school might have much further to walk.  An express bussing service between the two schools could alleviate this challenge.  Playground equipment would have to be consolidated for age appropriate structures. This could be arranged through the division’s facility department.   Special needs equipment would have to be re-arranged to provide age appropriate supports in each school.  We would need information events in order to hear all concerns and investigate whether satisfactory solutions could be formulated.

Please consider the information provided to you in this communication.  We would like to hear from parents and community members with regard to this possible opportunity.  We will hold one or more public events to discuss your thoughts on this in the new year.   In the meantime, please discuss this amongst your friends, neighbors and community members.  Your school principals would be happy to hear from you and will attempt to provide answers to your questions.  We will send information home after the holidays about possible open house meetings to discuss this with you.  Thank you very much for your consideration of these ideas and may you have a very special Christmas season with your families.

Sincerely,

Guy G. Tétrault, Ed.D. Director of Education/CEO