École LaVérendrye and Earl Grey students switch schools in 2016/17 school year. Details include the following:
- Relocate all Nursery to grade 6 Earl Grey students to École LaVérendrye.
- Relocate all Nursery to grade 6 École LaVérendrye students to Earl Grey.
- Relocate grades 7 and 8 students from Earl Grey to other schools (e.g., Grant Park, River Heights, or Churchill) in 2016/17.
- Other schools in the Division not affected.
While this solution involves major changes to the Earl Grey school community, it is the best solution for the larger community.
- Provides the greatest certainty of immediate (and long-term) relief of the capacity issues at LaVérendrye. Both Sir William Osler and Robert H. Smith options would take years to reduce LaVérendrye's enrollment, and may trigger enrollment issues of their own.
- Disrupts the fewest students. 20-30 Junior High students at Earl Grey would need to move to other schools two years sooner than otherwise, and some child care programming would need to be adjusted at both schools and the Earl Grey Community Centre, but 95% of students at both schools would stay with their classmates. Compare with the Robert H. Smith option, where at least 155 students would be dispersed to other schools.
- Is cost-effective, involving about $300,000 in renovations to each school to prepare it for the switch. Other options involve costly band-aids such as more modular classrooms, throw-away renovations such as separate French amenities to be used for a single year, and expensive building renovations such as a new gymnasium.
- Maintains existing transportation arrangements. Parents who currently walk their children to either school can continue to do so, since the schools are only 6 blocks apart.
- Maintains and expands a successful program with a proven track record. Establishing a new program elsewhere may take some time to reach the same level of maturity that LaVérendrye's program already has.
- Lays the groundwork for further expanding the program to offer grades 7 & 8 in a milieu setting, relieving impending pressures on École River Heights as the influx of students currently enrolled at LaVérendrye graduate and seek Junior High education in their neighborhood.
There are some important challenges that need to be addressed, such as in-school child care and transportation of students from the school to child care and other programming offered at the Earl Grey Community Centre. These challenges are not insurmountable, and should be able to be resolved given a rational, informed discussion between the parties involved. Several ideas have already been floated by both Winnipeg School Division officials and members of LaVérendrye's parent community. If these consultations are done properly, a solution should be possible which not only maintains access to these critical services, but strengthens the larger community by making Community Centre programming more easily available to students from both schools.
However, Winnipeg School Division has proposed that this switch happen when the new LaVérendrye gymnasium is complete in 2016. This will require yet more program loss at LaVérendrye, as the computer lab is turned into a classroom and 25 child care spaces are lost. Further, the gymnasium was originally promised for 2015, and a tender has yet to be issued for construction. There is no guarantee that it will be complete by 2016.
LaVérendrye's students cannot afford more program losses, nor can they wait until the gymnasium is completed at some point in the future. A school switch in 2015 is what the children of LaVérendrye need.
