Two delegations made presentations at a closed meeting Feb. 23 in the school divison’s office in Dunmore. One was by parent Tammy Brown, who has two small children attending Bindloss school and the other was made by officials with the parent council including chair Teri McMorran.

Many of the same issues raised at the public meeting early in February were re-iterated including concerns about the distance elementary school children would have to travel on busses if the school were to close, the fact such a large area would be left without a school and that students aren’t being bussed to their closest schools. Bindloss parents contend that if Empress students attended school in Bindloss instead of Warren Peers School in Acadia Valley, their school would be viable.

“The board listened respectfully,” says McMorran. “We know it’s a hard decision for them, but we’re hoping they’ve heard everything and the things we’re willing to do to facilitate this... I hope they’ve heard us.”

Parents were disappointed to hear the board has to deal with the decision whether to close the school before it can look at any other options such as changing transportation boundaries or making Bindloss a grades 1 to 6 facility instead of grades 1 to 9.

The motion made at the Jan. 12 regular board meeting was to “consider the closure of Bindloss school effective June 30, 2010 and that the Board decision on the potential closure be made at the regular board meeting to be held on March 9, 2010.”

Trustees have to deal with the decision whether to close the school first. If the board were to decide not to close the school at that March 9 meeting, then trustees could put forward other options.

Pat Cocks, secretary-treasurer, says the legislative process to close a school is the same even if just the junior high grades were to close in Bindloss. That means another notice of motion, a public meeting, and the proper advertising needs to be done if closing three or more grades.

“Since they started the process ... the board has to deal with the question of school closure,” says Cocks.

Tammy Brown’s family lives the furthest south from Bindloss and closure of the school would mean an extra two hours of riding the bus every day for her seven-year-old son Hunter and eight-year-old daughter Cloey. What complicates this even further is that Cloey has Type 1 diabetes.

At the closed meeting Feb. 23, she made the case for a grades 1-6 school in Bindloss rather than school closure.

She presented a document with signatures of all the parents who have children in grades 1-6 next year (seven in total) and parents with children ages five and under (12 total) who would be willing to send their children to Bindloss even if staffing is cut to only one teacher and one teacher’s aide.

Part of the reasoning behind considering school closure is that last fall Superintendent Doug Nicholls met with parents on an individual basis to ask them questions surrounding if their child would still attend Bindloss School if nothing was changed, if there was only 1.5 teachers and if there was only one teacher. Some parents said if staffing were cut they would send their children elsewhere.

Brown pointed out it was only junior high parents who were not keen on less staff and wanted their children to be able to access more extra-curricular activities such as sports.

Brown also offered other cost-saving measures such as turning off one of the school’s furnaces since fewer classrooms would be in use; encouraging video conferencing opportunities in the younger grades; having only one bus route since the children live close enough together and sharing administration costs with another school.

She also pointed to the success of multi-grading in that students perform just as well on achievement tests and such a system works for Hutterite colonies which receive one teacher for students ages five to 15.

Brown also believes the demographics of the Bindloss area will be changing. She found there are 34 farming families over the age of 50 and 16 of them are over the age of 60. Younger families will be brought in to either take over these operations or just manage them and they will likely have children.

She encouraged the board to look at the option of having Empress children attend Bindloss as well as children from Buffalo. Empress is 28 km from Bindloss but 40 km from Acadia Valley where the children currently attend. Buffalo is also closer to Bindloss at 33 km rather than 45 km to Jenner.

“A question of ours is, ‘Why are children not being bused to their closest school?’” asked Brown.

When asked about the history of bussing in the area, Cocks said when Empress School was closed, parents were given an option of where to bus their children, either Acadia Valley or Bindloss and there were choices both ways. Prairie Rose School Division was a new entity because regionalization had just taken place.

When attendance area boundaries were drawn up, they were made following a similar pattern as the previous school boards. Bindloss was located in the former Cypress School Division while Empress was located in the former Acadia School Division. The natural progression then for Prairie Rose School Division trustees was to place the Empress students in the attendance area for Warren Peers School in Acadia Valley.

“None of these students are going to their closest school,” says McMorran, adding lobbying has taken place for years to have the attendance area boundaries changed.

Carol Hern, principal of Bindloss School from 1984 to 2006 was says Empress was always in a different attendance area than Bindloss, even before she started working in education in the area in the mid 1970s. She doesn’t know why it’s different though because usually boundaries follow the flow of a river. Not in this case.

“It’s very hard to change the boundaries. I lobbied for years trying to change (them),” she says. “I feel the kids should be attending their closest school.”

McMorran agrees.

“They need to think about strategically placing these schools. In cities they place the schools in areas where they need them. When you look at a map (of Prairie Rose’s rural area) it doesn’t make sense to have such an open area without a school.”

What has been even more frustrating for some Bindloss parents is feeling like they haven’t been well represented by their trustee Marian Peers.

Brown said it should have been Peers who put forward a motion to look at attendance area boundaries or other options for the school such as changing it to a grades 1-6 facility rather than just school closure.

McMorran said Peers feels like parents haven’t included her, but that’s because they haven’t.

“We feel her interests lie in keeping Acadia Valley School stable. Nothing against the school there ... we just feel there’s a conflict of interest. She hasn’t offered us much,” says McMorran.

When concerns about representation were raised after the public meeting in Bindloss Feb. 2, Peers said parents have to tell her what they want.

“I’m trying to represent them as best I can ... We’re trying to do what’s best for the kids in that area,” she told the Prairie Post in an interview Feb. 3.

Parents also feel the provincial government isn’t offering a lot of support. One parent wrote to the Minister of Education at the end of January concerned about funding for rural schools, but has yet to receive a reply even though the minister’s office says it responds to correspondence within about three weeks. A representative at the Minister’s office said if no reply was sent out, then the letter likely wasn’t received.

The letter was also copied to area MLA and Minister of Rural Development and Agriculture, Jack Hayden, with a note asking for his thoughts and concerns regarding the future of rural locations that have no education base. As of press time, no response to the note had been received.

“I think we’ve done all we can. We’ve tried really hard,” says McMorran about the fight to keep the school open in some form. “It’s been a struggle but we’re in it for the long haul.”

PRSD’s board of trustees will make a decision about the future of Bindloss School at the March 9 regular meeting which starts at 10 a.m. at the board office in Dunmore. The meeting is open to the public.