Southview Parents Echo Concerns About School Closures

The sun might be setting on Southview Community School as trustees move at a lighting pace to shutdown the elementary school along with Webster Niblock. (Photo Alex McCuaig)

Shuttering a neighbourhood school is a tough decision requiring some deliberations. But parents at Southview School are echoing the sentiments of those at Webster Niblock as they try to understand why the two elementary schools are on the chopping block.

“There has been a lot of work over the years done to the school building and now for them to sit there and go, we don’t have the students coming in, it seems unfair,” said parent Rene Daniels. “What happens when there’s another big boom? You close the school now, what’s to say in another three or four years it’ll not have to be open again?”

Daniels’ son will be gone if the decision is made to shutter the school, a decision made after the newly elected public school trustees voted to begin the process of closing the two city schools a week after being sworn into office.

“It’s so frustrating to deal with,” said Daniels of the politics. “Out of all the schools in Medicine Hat that could be closed or funded has been completely ignored. I know a lot of people in the community here have put a lot of effort into keeping Southview Community School open.”

While Daniels’ child will be moving on to junior high next year, she said many of her friends are scrabbling because they have children just entering the school system.

“They were hopefully to go to this school but have to rethink where their kid goes,” she said, adding she’d like to see where the funding from the closed schools will go.

The sentiment was far from unique.

Samantha Dickson said the school is located in a perfect neighbourhood.

“There are lots of kids around here. I went here when I was a little child and my son just started kindergarten and it’s a nice little community,” she said. “Where are the kids supposed to go when this school closes? There are a lot of kids who walk here in the wintertime.”

She added the park is used by many of the children in the neighbourhood year-round.

“If the schools not open, where are the kids supposed to go out and play,” asked Dickson.

And like many other parents from the two affected schools, Dickson is trying to figure out how closing schools is going to help teachers and students where class sizes are an issue.

“This is a perfect example. It can show them what a smaller classroom can do,” she said of Southview.

She said she feels the move doesn’t take into consideration the pressures putting more kids in fewer schools.

“It’s not fair for the extra pressure on the teachers, it’s not fair on the kids because they need that extra little bit of help. They’re not getting it so, it’s like they are failing,” said Dickson.

Requests for comment from Cathrine Wilson, board chair of the Medicine Hat School Division, have not been responded to following calls and emails since the announcement at the beginning of November.