Board staff present report on future of Pictou schools
Age-old legislation could be key to help keep high school students in the Town of Pictou for now.
The News received a copy of the Chignecto-Central School Board’s staff technical report which states that making Pictou Elementary School a P-8 school and moving Grades 9-12 to Northumberland High School is the best option in the school review process, but at this point provincial legislation will prevent it from happening.
The technical report was expected to be presented for the first time at a special school board meeting Monday following the presentation by the School Options Committee as part of the school review process.
“To implement this option requires the ‘private’ 1816 Act to be revised or revoked by the provincial House of Assembly. The school review policy does not appear to allow a board to make a decision that is founded on a condition such as a change in legislation,” the report states.
The Act, introduced again in 1969 as Bill 132, states there must be an institution called Pictou Academy in the Town of Pictou.
Because of this, the report says the option to move grades 9-12 is not a “valid consideration” at this time. An alternative to the SOC’s recommendation to have a P-12 in Pictou by using Pictou Elementary and Dr. Thomas McCulloch is acceptable.
However, the report states “the governing board may request a change in the amended 1816 Act for the Founding of the Pictou Academy to allow for future considerations for the 9-12 students.”
The review process started in the fall for Pictou Elementary School, Dr. Thomas McCulloch and Pictou Academy as well Northumberland Regional High School as a feeder school.
Staff presented the school boards with three recommendations that all included grades 9-12 students going to NRHS, but a School Options Committee recommended that a new P-12 school be built in the town or as a backup plan, a P-12 be formed using Pictou Elementary
and Dr. Thomas MccCulloch. The next phase saw the school board instruct its staff to complete a technical report on all of the options, including the SOC’s recommendations.
The technical report says the terms of reference in the school review process rule out the option of building a new P-12 in the town, but the SOC’s second option is viable with changes in the grade configurations.
The SOC recommended that Pictou Elementary be P-5 and Dr. Thomas McCulloch become 6-12, but the technical report says that it works better as a P-8 and 9-12 configuration, since any future move of grades 9-12 to NRHS, and would require a potential second move of grades 6-8 to Pictou Elementary School.
The CCRSB technical report states that if the school board accepts the recommendation
to have grades P-8 at Pictou Elementary and 9-12 at McCulloch, it could be done as early as September 2017. Dr. Thomas McCulloch School could be renamed Pictou Academy.
The Pictou Academy Educational Foundation announced Friday it would commit $1 million over five to seven years to a P-12 school that is named Pictou Academy.
The school board will make its decision at a public meeting April 5. The province needs to decide by June 30 if it is going to extend its lease of the P3 Pictou Elementary, let it run out or buy it outright.