Redfish elementary school at Longbeach will add Grade 6 in 2019 and Grade 7 in 2020, the Kootenay Lake board of education has decided. The school presently has about 100 students in kindergarten to Grade 5 but the parent advisory council asked that the school be reconfigured to include the additional grades.
Board chair Lenora Trenaman, who represents the Redfish catchment area, put forward the motion this month. “There were some concerns of course,” she said. “But at the end, it had very strong support by the board and our staff.”
Elementary schools in the Nelson area are all configured K-to-5, but Redfish used to be a K-to-6. In 2014, parents requested their school retain the older grades due to the distance required for students travel to Nelson, but they were turned down.
The district’s present facilities plan, however, calls for Nelson-area elementary schools to eventually be configured as K-to-7. “So Redfish was quite happy with that, but also realized it might not happen for some time because it’s all based on the [overall] facilities plan moving ahead,” Trenaman explained.
The board supported expediting the move at Redfish because it has room to accommodate extra students. Its catchment area stretches from Nine Mile to Coffee Creek.
However, Trenaman said they opted to delay the change for one year because the current Grade 6 class is already prepared to move on, having completed orientation at Trafalgar Middle School.
She said a few people wondered whether the decision will lead to similar requests from other elementary schools: “My position is that first of all they haven’t asked, and second they would have to have space.”
Trenaman said Redfish’s situation is also different than the rest of the elementary schools that feed into Trafalgar, since they’re all in Nelson or close by, whereas Redfish is 27 km away. She said the “tight-knit” communities on the North Shore want to “keep kids as close to home as possible.”
From the Nelson Star