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Lake Country schools full

The issue of where to put overflow students at Davidson Road Elementary remains up in the air

Kevin Parnell

Black Press

With Lake Country parents registering their children for the 2016-17 school session beginning this week, the issue of where to put overflow students at Davidson Road Elementary remains up in the air.

It’s expected there will be more students enrolled at Davidson Road than the current cap of 485 come this September and discussion about where those students should attend school was front and centre at last week’s Central Okanagan School Board meeting.

Trustee Julia Fraser put forward a motion that would have directed overflow students from the Davidson Road catchment area to Oyama Traditional School. But after discussion amongst the board, the issue was instead tabled and sent to the planning and facilities committee by a 4 to 3 vote.

“If we have too many students when we finish registration, the issue is where will they be directed to,” said school board chair Moyra Baxter, who said last year those overflow students were directed to Peter Greer. “We won’t really know until registration is finished. It’s very complicated and one thing hinges on another. It’s difficult until you get the complete picture.”

With Davidson Road capped at 485 and Peter Greer also expected to be over-capacity this year as well, that  leaves Oyama Traditional as the only of the three elementary schools operating under its capacity number.

That led Fraser to put forward the motion to have the overflow students from Davidson Road directed to Oyama.

“I think this is a situation where the numbers are being ignored,” said Fraser in an interview with the Lake Country Calendar. “We have one school that is over-capacity, one that is just right (Peter Greer) and one that is under (Oyama). You would think common sense would prevail when you are trying to equal the student population between the three schools.”

Over-population at Davidson Road has been an ongoing issue for years. The first move the school district made to try and alleviate the pressure was to take Grade 7 students from each of the elementary schools and place them in a modular school next to George Elliot Secondary. But Davidson Road remained over-capacity, forcing the school board to undertake a year-long process that changed the catchment areas in Lake Country.

Trustees agree that Lake Country will eventually need a new middle school and that would be built on land the district currently owns and is leasing back to the Aspen Golf Course.

But it hinges on the provincial government deciding to build a new school and Fraser says having one school with room to fill may keep the government from taking action to build a new school in Lake Country.

“Until all three schools are filled, it’s highly unlikely the government is going to approve construction of a new school,” she said. “To me there appears to be a stigma against one particular school (in Lake Country) and as a trustee I don’t condone it and I don’t understand it. The programming and the quality of education is as good in Oyama as in any other school.”

The issue will now be discussed at the next meeting of the school district’s planning and facilities meeting, before it comes back to the regular school board.