Closing Jarvie and W.R. Frose schools, and moving their students to the new Pembina North Community School in Dapp, is officially a done deal. Mostly.
There still remains the matter of the six planned modular classrooms arriving in Dapp in time to host the pending influx of young learners. But what will happen in the event the modulars don’t arrive on time is a question for another day.
In many ways, the 7-0 vote to close the two schools was an anticlimactic conclusion to a saga that’s over a year old.
We have known for months the best and most viable solution to the issues plaguing the schools in Jarvie and Fawcett was to shutter those facilities and bus the students to a new school in Dapp.
In some ways, it was a result that could be seen coming years ago.
It’s not that Jarvie and W.R. Frose schools were horrible environments, nor was it like the old Eleanor Hall that was quite literally falling apart.
On the contrary, thanks to strong teaching staffs, both schools were educational beacons. And while the buildings were showing their age, they weren’t at risk of collapsing. Instead, the issues plaguing those schools quite simply came down to dwindling enrolment. And when you have considerably fewer students attending a school than the school is physically able to accommodate, you start to see the costs of keeping the school running begin to outpace the revenue the school generates.
So, while school divisions don’t operate as for-profit entities, they also aren’t in the business of running yearly deficits, especially when those deficits show a marked tendency to increase.
All that is to say this decision, as tough as it was to make for emotional and sentimental reasons, was the right one to make when it came down to dollars and cents.
Will busing Jarvie and Fawcett’s students to an expanded school in Dapp be a financial boon? We don’t know.
Will it improve education north of Westlock because the funding and energy is concentrated in one location? Possibly.
Will the Jarvie and Fawcett communities wither and die without active schools? Only time will tell.
But what we can say is the time for handwringing has passed, and it’s time to look to the future.
