What Lies Ahead For The Rural Schools In This Region?

Tuesday, January 04, 2011 03:45 AM

In a New Year’s interview, Lyn Hall, Chair of School District 57's Board of Education, takes the position that the population of Prince George will increase, albeit on a small basis, in spite of the fact that the school population is dropping in PG just as it is all across most of the province.

Hall says we should see slight increases in the number of people living in the city, and he even has some hope that Mackenzie might see growth to a point that the elementary school can re open.

All of those predictions come in the face of a further drop of the school population of between 300 and 400 students over the next two years.

There is little doubt that the rural population, and in particular the rural school children, have been taking a hit whenit comes to facility priorities. Schools such as Giscome that require a new building at upwards of 3.5 million dollars are facing a tough sell with the province in spending $175,000 dollars for each of the twenty students that attend that school.

On one hand you want to be able to maintain the rural life style, while on the other, cost becomes a factor.

We are losing more and more of the rural mosaic in not only this region but across Canada in general and the question is , at what expense.?

Many smaller rural towns across the prairies have been reduced to nothing after the local school, which provided a gathering place for the adults and children alike, in many instances a religious facility and a place to hold meetings, have long been shuttered up.

We have watched the same unfold in Bear Lake, and McLeod Lake and the question remains , how long can we maintain the remaining few?

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: gus on January 4 2011 11:27 AM

It seems we have unlearned the days when communities grew and facilities were provided for that growth to accommodate the community needs.

They grew to the point when there were 50, 100, 150 people and they got a one room "school house", if you want to call it that, such as is standing next to the Exploration Place. And they got a community hall. And they got a small church. Look at the one in Barkerville for a nice example of that. And some may have had all three in one building.

As the community shrinks, we do not need principal's offices, gyms, libraries and the like. Our library is our internet connection. Our school team projects are through internet connections.

We have modern communications the likes of which were not known 75 years and 100 years ago when communities strung along the CN line to the east of PG were still active.

We need to look at schools and community halls in a different light than comparing them with small town ammenities. We need to adopt those teaching methods used by a single teacher to teach a mixed grade group of 5 or 10. With today's technology that should be far easier than it ever was.

10 students to one teacher. My god, kids in cities should be so lucky to have a student-teacher ratio like that!!!

Posted by: Resident on January 4 2011 11:42 AM

Can we really blame the school board for rural school closure. Most of the rural schools were based on industry have plants in the area. Upper Fraser at one time had a school and housing for its employees and children. The mill is long gone along with the company housing and school. The mill closure had a effect on families at Giscome as people moved to find new jobs. Bear Lake is much the same with the closure of the Winton Global sawmill. McLeod Lake suffered the same fate when staff housing was eliminated at the gas compressor station.
As much as we all would like to see rural schools survive and kids not have to take 2 hour bus rides it all comes down to the dollars the provincial gov't will provide to school boards. Reduced budgets equates to reduced service.

Posted by: anniemartin on January 5 2011 9:01 AM

In the USA, some states are closing the large warehouse type schools for smaller schools based on almost 40 years of existing research and literature which indicates that students in small schools have higher attendance and graduation rates, fewer drop-outs, equal or better levels of academic achievement (standardized test scores, course failure rates, grade point averages), higher levels of extra-curricular participation and parent involvement, and fewer incidences of discipline and violence.

Although small schools cost more per annum to fund, the results are what you want from a school. We are encouraging kids to be more active, but they can't even walk to school anymore. How many parents hear from their kids that they don't even know half of the kids in their grade? My son complains that he won’t use the bathrooms because they ‘re so dirty, that he feels no sense of belonging or loyalty to his school –he’s just a number. He wonders why kids have to share text books that have ripped pages and are out of date. He sees that teachers struggle with classes that are too big for the teacher to give attention to kids who need it and their stress every year when budget time rolls around and they’re all wondering if their school is the next on the chopping block.

It’s disturbing that we have lost sight of what government services are important. This BC government treats each service like a business. Since when are human services a business? The Canadians who built Canada’s social system looked first to the value of the service and next was the cost. I would argue that education and healthcare are the most important services and social welfare next. Unfortunately, in this province the government has focussed on improving business opportunity with the argument that if they don’t there won’t be a tax base. So, we’ve improved our policies and tax rates for businesses and businesses are more profitable, are buying more goods from other businesses and the circle is complete – only problem is that we have under-educated kids, huge wait times at dirty, understaffed hospitals, more homeless and hungry citizens and the highest child poverty rate ever. The working class is now carrying the burden of taxation to the point where they are falling further and further behind and are being told that they are not worthy of high quality health care or a good education for their children. They have a job don't they, so just shut up. Not a trade-off to be proud of.

http://smallschools.cps.k12.il.us/research.html
http://www.smallschoolsproject.org/index.asp?siteloc=whysmall§ion=cost

Posted by: Jim13135 on January 6 2011 10:11 PM

Not to mention there seems to be an unending supply of money to build $250K homeless housing, $39 million dollar weigh scales [9mil overbudget], $11 million for 20 jail cells...$6 million legal bills, $2 million Mr. Big Stings...and the list goes on....all while rural schools are closing and PG residents are sent to Quesnel for ultra-sounds???

Somebody, some where, some time....should re-think our spending priorities.