The North Okanagan-Shuswap School District insists restructuring is necessary in Enderby.
On Tuesday, official trustee Mike McKay initiated a public consultation process that could see M.V. Beattie Elementary become kindergarten to Grade 5 and A.L. Fortune Secondary become Grade 6 to 12, or Beattie shift to kindergarten to Grade 6 and Fortune move to Grade 7 to 12.
“Something has to be done,” said McKay during the board meeting at Pleasant Valley Secondary School in Armstrong.
According to the district, M.V. Beattie will be beyond capacity in 2017/18 as a kindergarten to Grade 7 school. Under the current mandate, it is estimated to require 15 classrooms to meet class size requirements but it only has 13 classes.
“We’re in a place where we need to do something,” said Glenn Borthistle, superintendent.
“There is capacity at A.L. Fortune.”
A consultation meeting will be held April 4 at A.L. Fortune Secondary after the regular board meeting and a final decision will be made May 15.
Besides reconfiguring Fortune and Beattie, three other options were considered by the district to handle capacity issues at Beattie.
They included installing two portable classrooms at Beattie, declaring Beattie full and returning all out of catchment students to their home schools and redrawing the catchment areas to increase enrolment at Grindrod and Ranchero elementary schools.