COLD LAKE – Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) is getting closer to a solution for dealing with increasing enrolment in their city schools.
The Cold Lake Configuration Committee held their second meeting on Feb. 4 at Cold Lake High School (CLHS), where they took a deeper look at information from NLPS.
“We made some short presentations for them on transportation issues, on the facilities, on the grade configuration, and we went through the enrolment projection in detail,” explained NLPS secretary-treasurer Paula Elock.
The committee was formed in 2019 and consists of parents and principals from Cold Lake public schools.
They were tasked with developing proposals to deal with the strain their schools are currently facing due to the increasing number of students. The division is projecting enrolment to jump from 2,434 in 2019/20 to 2,638 by the 2022/23 school year.
At their most recent meeting, members broke off into groups to meticulously review all of the information and come up with a solution.
“Our next step will be to go through what they came up with, and condense them down so we can take information out to the public for their input,” Elock detailed.
After reviewing the numbers, Elock said there were a few members of the committee that believe they have an answer.
“We still need others, because we’re not there to make decisions. We’re there to maybe bring up the best solutions to present to the general public so they can weigh in.”
NLPS trustee Karen Packard was on-hand during the meeting to observe and pleased to see the level of involvement.
“They’re pretty engaged and they seem like they’re really committed to finding a good solution for us in Cold Lake.”
After NLPS reviews the proposals from the committee, they’ll present three viable solutions to the public for feedback. Once they hold a couple of sessions with the public, Elock explained they will consider all the input before a final decision is made.
When addressing the over population at NLPS’ Cold Lake schools, the public school board wanted to make sure stakeholders were involved.
“We need parental support in ensuring the schools are the way the community wants. As long as we can manage it, with respect to transportation and facilities… if we can put modifications in those ways to address any concerns that they have that would be the ideal situation,” detailed Elock. “If our primary goal is education, what we don’t want to have happen is we make a decision based solely on transportation or facilities and forget the human component. This is about the kids. Parents are a big part of what we do and why we do it. Having their voice there is so important. It’s critically important to us that we do this right.”
Packard agreed, “There’s a lot of different options for how we could go forward, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all good options. I think that once we hear from the families and the community members, I think it’ll help the board figure out which is the best of those options.”
Elock noted there are a number of factors that need to be considered and they’re looking into all avenues.
“You try to balance it out and look at what programs we do offer in which schools and how do we manage them? What does the grade configuration look like, what does transportation look like, and what adjustments need to be made? What can you do with transportation that might help alleviate some of the pressures? That’s what we’re looking into right now.”
