High School Configuration Decision Delayed

By Larissa Lutjen

The School District 83 board meeting held on April 20 went into double overtime, but trustees once again did not make a decision about the future configuration of Salmon Arm’s middle and secondary schools as part of the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP), which was initiated in February of 2019, and had been scheduled for finalization last June.

Over the past year, several LRFP options were removed from the table and the possibility was addedto request money from the provincial government to build a new secondary school in the Sorrento area in the future. There is no guarantee that the province would approve the funds needed to build a new high school but there is enough support for the idea to include it as a consideration for as much as ten years in the future.

The two remaining options that will affect where students from the North Shuswap attend high school in the meantime are called E4 and E5 in the plan. E4 would create two grade 7-9 middle schools by changing the existing 6-8 grade offering at the existing middle school to grades 7-9 and turn the J.L. Jackson campus into a grade 7-9 middle school. Sullivan would then be a grade 10-12 high school. E5 would see two grade 9-12 high schools located at the Jackson and Sullivan campuses. Two main factors are pressing the district to make this change. The current situation where students do grades 9 and 10 at J. L. Jackson, and grades 11 and 12 at the Sullivan school, is not ideal for students who would be better served by fewer transitions and consistency with teaching staff. Enrollment pressures are also putting stress on many of the existing Salmon Arm schools with a plan needed before new portables are purchased or additions built. In surveys, with admittedly small sample sizes, staff and students showed a slight preference for E5 and parents preferred E4.

One key consideration is financial, with Superintendent Peter Jory suggesting that the E4 option could be nearly five times as expensive, costing from three to six million dollars compared to one million for the E5 option. North and South Shuswap Trustee Marty Gibbons expressed some skepticism toward the financial estimates and spoke firmly in favour of the E4 choice, stating, “the community is overwhelmingly opposed to a two-high school model in Salmon Arm.”

The implications for the Celista school if E4 is selected is not clear, however, the decision could lead to bussing kids out in grade 7 or adding grade 9 to North Shuswap Elementary and Middle.

Once the structure decision is made the board will need to decide whether to pursue a ‘hard start’ or a ‘soft start’ for September 2022. A hard start would see the new structure in place for all students. The soft start would transition the change over a few years with some students remaining in the current structure and teachers at all the schools adding new courses to accommodate the interim phase.

At the April 20 meeting the possibility of locating one of the two high schools in the E5 proposal at the current site of the Shuswap Middle school, and relocating the middle school to the Jackson campus, was also raised. The board agreed to consider that change and will reconvene at a special meeting in May where the long-awaited decision could finally be made.