Public Schools Branch to rezone students from Spring Park to West Royalty
The P.E.I. Public Schools Branch made its decision on the final option it will put forward to deal with overcrowding at Charlottetown schools.
The Board of Directors presented its decision at a public meeting, Wednesday night. The decision will see students from the Orchard Hill and Lewis Point Park area who are in the English program at Spring Park Elementary rezoned to West Royalty Elementary.
"It used to be the school of choice, or the school that served that area," Sabean said. "So it makes as much sense as any other [option] to go back to West Royalty."
The decision was chosen from three options the Public Schools Branch presented for elementary schools after conducting a review to address overcrowding at six Charlottetown schools earlier this year. The decision was previously deferred at a meeting in September after the board said it needed more analysis before it made a decision.
"We wanted to have as good of information as we could possibly have in terms of the total number of students by grade, by class and by programming.
"At the end of the day, it made more sense to look at that area of Lewis Point and Orchard Hill that are closest in proximity to West Royalty," Sabean said.
Phased rezoning process
Sabean said students will be rezoned in phases over the next five years, beginning with students in kindergarten to grade 2 in September 2019.
Next fall, students in grade 3-6 may choose to continue going to Spring Park or transfer to West Royalty.
He said the first phase will see about 60 Spring Park students transferred. Sabean said the board decided on a phased transition model to avoid the possibility of overcrowding at West Royalty.
Director of the Public Schools Branch, Parker Grimmer said if a student affected by the rezoning has an older sibling at Spring Park who would also like to be rezoned to West Royalty by next September, they may do so by submitting a transfer request with the schools branch.
Review process complete
Grimmer said Wednesday's decision marks the conclusion of the schools review project that began earlier this year.
"It's a conclusion to something that started at a public board of directors meeting back in April," Grimmer said. "I think we needed to listen to one another and really get to the essence of consultation."
The board put forward its recommendation for secondary schools in September, which would include the creation of additional infrastructure, either one school or two, to be built in Stratford to accommodate students in the Stratford and Donagh school zones. Last month, Finance Minister Heath MacDonald tabled the capital budget for 2019-20, which includes $38 million for the construction of a new high school in Stratford.
Sabean said the recommendation to rezone Spring Park students stems from months of public consultation with school staff, parents and students.
"We believe it's the most workable solution and it is the one that came through in terms of the consultation that was done as being one of the ideas that would be perhaps most acceptable, so that certainly factored into our final decision," Sabean said.
Sabean said the rezoning process will reduce Spring Park's student population to 500 and that West Royalty will have capacity to accommodate the incoming students.
"We know that West Royalty has also been approved to have additional space within the next few years so long-term it will not create any significant issues for either school," Sabean said.
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