They're private conversations, held in rural communities across Northeastern Alberta: “We already drive the toddler to Athabasca at 5:30 a.m. to drop them at Nan's before work. Wouldn't it make more sense to drop the nine-year-old too and just have them go to school there?”
But they're happening on a more regular basis and rural schools are seeing their enrolment drop because of it, which carries a stiff price tag. The principal of Ardmore School and president of Ardmore's school council presented at the Northern Lights School Division's board meeting May 21 about the challenges facing their school: a drop of one-third of their students in one year, reducing the only school in the hamlet, 18 km east of Bonnyville, to 98 students from 147.
“Our biggest challenge is just attracting and retaining students with being a small rural school,” said Vanessa Bowman, Ardmore school council president. “With the ability of people to go to Bonnyville really easily, it's really impacted our numbers.”
A combination of convenience and greater programming has increased the lure of schools in larger centres, which has left Ardmore out of the loop, with no Grade 9 students and split-grade classes in every classroom.
Northern Lights School Division superintendent Roger Nippard says it's become an issue across the district.
“It's not just Ardmore, it's Iron River, it's Kikino, it's Caslan,” he said. “Right across the school division, and I'd say right across Alberta... there's a rural depopulation trend. I think government school boards, municipalities, everyone needs to take a long hard look... (at) trying to make sure those schools not just survive, I guess, but thrive.”
Nippard said it has been an issue for people working long shifts in the oil patch.
“They're working long hours, Their daycare and child care is virtually impossible to find... in some of the smaller communities,” he said. “If they have preschool children or so on, they have to take them to a larger centre and drop them off... it's just easier to drop the kids off to school.”
Enrolment has fluctuated across the district, with Caslan dropping from 104 students in September of 2009 to 88 in 2012 before popping back to 93 in 2013; Iron River went from 101 in 2009 to 76 this year. Ardmore had 164 three years ago before it lost its last 12 Grade 9 students—Bowman said that when Bonnyville Centralized High School introduced Grade 9 classes, Ardmore took the hit.
“We've been frustrated because we feel as a school community, there's only so much we can do and there's sort of bigger policies that are impacting our school that just make it hard for us to work against,” she said.
There's a financial cost, too: in 2013/14, per-student base funding was $6,561.68, meaning that Ardmore's dip could have cost an estimated $321,522, or 12 per cent of its total budget.
“Funding follows students, so the less students you have, the less funding coming in,” Bowman said.
Bowman also brought up the issue of school-of-choice fees. If parents want to send their kids to a school out of their attendance area, they generally have the opportunity, but normally they have to pay a fee; for the Ardmore region, that's been waived. Bowman said the competition from the Catholic system is the cause.
“Not only the free bussing, but when Northern Lights School Division and the Catholic school division separated, both of those factors came together to make longer routes for our kids and make it really easy for kids to just travel out of their catchment areas to other schools,” she said.
Nippard said that this has been one of the issues that prevented a dual transportation system. “Let's say someone's attending the Ardmore school and they want to come into Bonnyville, and we say, well, there's a $400 fee,” he said. “And then they say, well, I'm Catholic. Well, if you are Catholic, you have a right to attend a Catholic school, and there is no fee.”
But Nippard said the NLSD's research, including exit interviews with outgoing parents, have indicated finances weren't an issue.
“My honest opinion is that a $300, $400 fee is not going to stop someone,” he said. “(Last year) there wasn't anyone who came because there was no fee... it was generally programming and convenience.”
In the meantime, Bowman, the school council, the principal and the teachers have been trying to market the school in the community.
“We've been trying to do a lot of things as a parent council, our school has been trying to promote itself whether it's on the media, on the Facebook page, just word of mouth (and) trying to create positive experiences for the kids who are in school so that they'll encourage younger siblings, or friends or other people in the area to come to that school.”
Options for change include trying to specify in specific areas of education and possibly combining operations with other local schools. Nippard said his past experiences at rural school boards put him into contact with some Scandinavian models of combining rural school buildings and municipal services.
“If you look at what they do over there, they do a lot to support, they have to figure out ways to make schools more sustainable, to offer better programming,” he said. “You will see a pretty active partnership between school boards and municipalities in the operation of those schools. They're the hubs for the community, a lot of municipal services and programs tend to be run out of them, they have an emphasis on music and fine arts.”
Bowman says she has been satisfied with the school division's response to their troubles, and thinks they've been sincere in their response.
“I felt very listened to. I think it was well received,” she said. “I think they heard the message and I think they are sympathetic, how much they are able to do, I don't know.”
