Winnipeg School Division decided tonight that, yes... LaVérendrye does have more to lose.
The press release is here.
In short, LaVérendrye is being split in two. Starting in the 2015/16 school year, all Nursery, Kindergarten, and Grade 1 students from LaVérendrye will instead attend Sir William Osler. Grade 2-6 students will continue attending LaVérendrye.
My initial impression is that the WSD Board of Trustees, when given a hard choice, selected the simplest possible option without regard to the children it will affect or the costs it will incur down the road.
The option to split LaVérendrye's program was presented as part of the initial consultation with parents in May 2014, and was soundly rejected with only 2 of the 46 respondents supporting it. I have a hard time believing that level of support has changed in the year since.
The Sir William Osler option presented as part of the most recent consultation process clearly indicated it would be a new program and that existing LaVérendrye N-6 students would be grandfathered. While I didn't support that option, it would have been, in my opinion, a better choice than this. At least then families would not be split apart.
There are apparently plans in the works for a long-term solution, implying that maybe splitting LaVérendrye is temporary. I can only hope that is true... but my faith in the process has been shaken, to say the least.
More to come as this sinks in and more information becomes available.
