Special meeting brings insight for Oyen parents
After meeting with parent councils in Oyen earlier this year, Prairie Rose School Division (PRSD) trustees made a return trip on March 13, this time to provide information and answer questions from parents and community members about declining enrollment at South Central High School.
“We went to Oyen in January and met with both school councils. They wanted parents to have a better understanding of how funding works, so they invited us to come back to have a broader discussion,” said PRSD superintendent Roger Clarke.
There are currently 90 high school students enrolled at South Central High School Next year, that number is expected to drop to 70.
“All of the kids in the area go to that one high school, so this is a natural decline,” said Clarke. “But, the horizon is showing us a picture.”
A number of the high school students attend SCHS because of the Badlands Baseball Academy in Oyen.
Clarke noted that there would be fewer students without the academy.
“The enrollment would be even lower if it wasn’t for the baseball academy. They have 16-18 students attend South Central, so we do support the academy because it brings students to our school,” he said. “Now for next year, if you take out those baseball kids, we would be down to 52 high school students.”
The meeting explored three priorities:
-to optimize, build, and maintain enrollment;
-to maximize talents and skills of staff;
-to develop cost-effective solutions to enhance programming opportunities.
Clarke said the session was not a decision-making meeting, but rather, provided an opportunity for learning and sharing various solutions.
“It was an exceptional meeting and there were some long-term and short- term ideas brought to us. It was an eyeopening experience,” he said. “They went away with a better understanding of how our funding works and people were thinking like a community.”
People in attendance also gained a greater understanding of how videoconferencing works. In PRSD, courses taught through video-conferencing are mainly for certain junior high classes.
We have had great success with videoconferencing and that might be part of the overall solution. The enrollment situation at South Central High School is unique in that it is a small freestanding 1A high school, with no other grades other than high school.
“This is not a normal situation. At Foremost, the school houses all grades. In Bow Island, it is high school and junior high and at Eagle Butte, enrollment decline is not an issue,” said Clarke.
Clarke said he was pleased with the turnout to the meeting and the feedback PRSD received from parents.
“As a school division, we are very appreciative for our parents and staff for coming to the meeting seeking the best way forward for our kids,” he said.