ATHABASCA — After a motion during their Dec. 20 meeting to begin a viability study at Rochester School, the process is almost complete.
Aspen View Public Schools Supt. Neil O’Shea informed trustees at the Jan. 20 regular meeting the Edmonton-based group Focus 10 Consulting was contracted to do to the study.
“We've signed a contract with them to conduct a study,” said O’Shea. “Their target date to have a full report to us is Feb. 16. As part of the contract, I am saying that at this point in time it will for sure be a preliminary report.”
He added he expects the full report to be presented at the Feb. 24 regular board meeting during a closed session before being moved into the public part of the meeting.
“We would have a short in-camera session with the board to interact with Focus 10 around the report, and then we move that report into our public board meeting for discussion,” he said.
Depending on what is presented in the final report, the board will have to decide to close all or part of the school, or leave it as-is.
“At that point in time the board would have a decision to make ... as to whether or not they wanted to pass a motion based on what they've heard in that viability study,” said O’Shea. “There’s a variety of motions that could be asked for (including) whether or not they want to provide a motion that is saying thank you for the viability study and we will not take any further action this time.”
O’Shea said he has also met with the school's administration as well as the Rochester School Council accompanied by trustee April Bauer and secretary-treasurer Aimee Hirtle.
“Some people are really new to the school and some people commented that their children are fourth generation and so there was a wide variety of emotions and feelings around it,” he said.
The Feb. 24 meeting will be held upstairs at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex which follows the REP (restrictions exemption program) requiring proof of vaccination or a clear COVID-19 test taken within the previous 72 hours.
“Our meeting is going to be held at the Multiplex because our board meeting is not available,” said O’Shea. “The Multiplex has the ability for us to live stream our meetings as well as if we have people attending, the room is a little bit bigger. We wouldn't be able to accommodate a lot of people under our current COVID conditions, but we could accommodate a few that they wanted to attend.”
