Census for Catholic school district expansion begins today

Homes in Lac La Biche will begin receiving census forms today as the Lakeland Catholic School District begins to determine whether the area qualifies for separate school expansion.

The first wave of census forms will be delivered by mail and email, and will ask voters to identify themselves as Catholic, Protestant, Other or refuse response. In order to qualify for a separate school district, Catholic voters must be the minority compared to Protestants.

"It's in process and we hope to be finished the census by the end of this month... then we'll go from there," said Mary Anne Penner, chair of Lakeland Catholic. "They were supposed to be receiving it starting the first of May, and they were having a little bit of trouble getting addresses. But that's been rectified, and as far as I know everything is good to go now."

The board announced that it was starting the process of expanding into the area for September 2014 at a public meeting on April 16 at St. Catherine's Parish. It is canvassing an area surrounding the eastern half of Lac La Biche Lake that includes the Lac La Biche Mission and township, but not Plamondon.

Penner says reaction from Catholics has been good.

"So far, what we've heard has been positive from the Catholic ratepayers," she said. "Other than that, we know that there are some people that are upset, and of course Northern Lights (School Division) would be one of them, but we're only going in and doing this because we've been asked to do so."

According to Northern Lights School Division chair Arlene Hrynyk, she's been hearing from NLSD employees more than the outside community.

"I think the community is trying to determine what it will mean for the community at this point," she said. "Certainly the expansion process will have to run its course."

If the census shows that Catholics are the minority compared to Protestants in the catchment area, a meeting of 25 per cent of Catholic voters can take a vote where, if at least 50 per cent are in favour, a separate district can go ahead.

If the move to expand is successful, one question is where exactly Lakeland Catholic would be able to go. Previous plans to move J.A. Williams High School to the new building at the Bold Center involved Central Elementary and Dr. Swift Middle School standing empty.

But between due to tight construction timelines, the tentative agreement to house East Central Francophone Education's new Pre-K to 2 program in Central Elementary, and new uncertainty around the Catholic school process, Hrynyk said that the district's reconfiguration committee has been asked to take a second look.

"We're not going to know how many students it will impact in our system," Hrynyk said. "When the committee met previously, they were operating in the dynamic of the student body we had at the time. Now they have to revisit that... it's basically a guessing game at this point."

Complicating the issue is the fact that reconfiguration may not be able to take place by September 2014.

"Realistically, I don't think we're going to be able to move every student in Lac La Biche from K-12 over a six-week period over the summer, so we have a number of concerns there," Hrynyk said.

Penner said that if the process is successful, space will be up to the Minister of Education, Jeff Johnson.

"Once we have an idea of what the numbers might be and what kind of a space we might be looking for, the letter goes to the minister and then the minister has to determine how it's handled from there," she said.

The Ministry itself cautioned that separate districts don't automatically get space, saying it has to submit a capital plan request. "When a separate school district is established there is no right or guarantee to a facility," wrote ministry spokesperson Trevor Gemmell in an e-mail.

Lakeland Catholic expects the census to be complete by the end of May. According to the Ministry of Education, there is no deadline for formation of a school, but the ministry encourages applications to be submitted by June 30.