ARC's recommendation New JK-Gr. 12 school wanted
PAT HALPIN The accommodation review committee for Walkerton schools recommends a new Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 school on the site of Walkerton District Secondary School.

The committee unveiled two preferences Thursday night. The first choice is a new building with Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 while the second choice is to demolish the oldest part of WDSS - the south-west corner - and build a two-story elementary wing to create a JK to Grade 12 School. That option would save the high school's tech wing and gym A\B.

In both cases the committee recommends keeping the 13-acre Brant Central site as green space and for sports.

Another option the committee examined but rejected was for a new elementary school to combine Brant Central and Walkerton Public, with a downsized WDSS on the existing site. That option was rejected because it won't solve fears about losing the high school in the future, said review committee chair Dan Wong.

"A renovated, stand-alone WDSS will come up for review over and over again," he said. "Other communities are having their (accommodation) reviews very soon and that's a major threat to us."

About 70 people were in the gym at WDSS to hear the recommendations on Walkerton's public schools. Those were developed over four months of exhaustive study, a one-month extension to review 16 submissions from the public, several public meetings, petitions and many late-night emails among committee members and Bluewater District School Board resource staff.

"We put more than 110 per cent into this process," Wong said.

"There certainly has been a lot of passion," he said about public input. The number one message was to keep a high school in Walkerton while the second message was to keep existing facilities.

"The best way to keep our high school in Walkerton is to ensure a long-term (new) building."

But response at the public meeting Thursday was critical, with arguments that the new school option will mean losing the high school's oversize gym and tech rooms.

That's not a given because there's no guarantee which option the board will select, Wong said, or whether the Ministry of Education will fund a renovation or a new building.

A new school would be a fresh start for all students and the best business case for provincial funding, Wong said, because Ministry investment in a new building means a more secure future in the long run.

Wong is dismayed that response zeroed in on the building rather than on the programs and educational opportunities for students.

"The word 'student' didn't come up at all," in comments at Thursday's meeting, he said in a later interview.

"We're concentrating too much on the physical structures (of the options). We need to concentrate on the programs."

Teachers and administration make WDSS what it is, Wong argued. He pointed to an 89.7 per cent graduation rate, the highest in the Bluewater district board.

"They achieve that not because they have wide halls or a gym, but because of the teachers," he said. "I have 100 per cent confidence in them. It is those people who make the success of any school."

The concept of all ages of students under one roof has some Walkerton parents unhappy, even though a combined JK to Grade 12 school was the recommendation of all three school councils.

Elementary and secondary students should be in a different buildings, said parent Kerry Wells.

"I don't like the idea that both of the options that were brought up were JK to 12 schools," she said after the meeting.

"I still firmly believe that the schools need to be kept separate, that the elementary students need to be kept in a separate school than the high school students," she said, citing worries about kids outside class.

Mixing of the age groups is a worry raised in two letters to the committee and in comments since the recommendations were released. Wong is puzzled by the negative attitude toward secondary students revealed in those comments.

"I don't understand how good kids are going to metamphorph in Grade Nine into these evil kids who will mislead elementary kids," he said. "That really blew me away."

Elementary and secondary students already ride the bus together with no report of problems, Wong pointed out.

In a new or properly renovated school elementary and secondary students will have separate areas and separate grounds.

"They won't see each other," he said.

There won't be any mixing in tech areas because Grades 7 and 8 will still go to Hanover for their technology classes. Cafeteria time will be separate because elementary students use a balanced day with breaks that don't overlap the secondary students' lunch hour.

"JK-12 is as controlled an environment as you can get," Wong said.

At the same time, putting the two groups of students together allows opportunity for coaching and mentoring like the Reading Buddies program popular between senior and primary elementary students.

A former WDSS student himself, Wong is sad at the prospect of losing the existing WDSS.

"If money and enrollment were not an issue, the status quo would be the choice," he said.

But he pointed out that within four years the new school will be home to a generation of students who won't have known any other building.

The Bluewater District School Board ordered reviews on Brant Central, Walkerton Public and Walkerton District Secondary because of declining enrolment and aging buildings. WDSS was built for approximately 1,400 students but currently has just half that number.

The elementary schools were reviewed five years ago, but at that time examination of the high school was deferred pending completion of elementary reviews and a board-wide re-examination of programs at the secondary level.

Recommendations unveiled Thursday were in response to "thousands and thousands of petitions and letters," in support of keeping a high school in Walkerton, Wong said.

Estimated cost of both the preferred options is about equal at $20 million.

Construction could be done without dislocating students. That was achieved in Hanover when the new Hanover Heights School was built on the James A Magee site.

An earlier recommendation for a new school to put both Brant central and Walkerton Public under one roof is on Bluewater's books but stalled over lack of funding.

The review committee's recommendations goes to the Bluewater district board May 20, with a final vote by the board Sept. 30.