Duchess Park Secondary School is still more than 100 students over capacity, despite a slight decrease in overall enrolment. As of September 30th, 2018, student enrolment is at 1,030, down from the 1,055 counted at the same time in 2017. The enrolment capacity for Duchess Park, as listed by the Ministry of Education, is 900 students.
Multiple short- and long-term strategies and initiatives have been implemented at the school to combat this, such as having certain classes be taught in the theatre or art room.
This, however, is not enough for returning School District 57 Board Trustee, Sharel Warrington.
“We can’t just rest on our laurels and think ‘well they’ve made some accommodations, that should work for the short term'”, she said.
“We have to address that right away and I think the new board should be up to the task to do it.”
Multiple new trustees were in the gallery at Tuesday night’s public meeting, the last for the current board. Warrington stressed to them the importance of dealing with this issue quickly and not letting it go another year or more.
She said ‘space is a gift’, which is one thing Duchess Park does not have.
“We do have an annex that is next door, there are options to perhaps use portables to accommodate some space issues, and the catchment issue will need to be addressed,” continued Warrington, who has been on the board for a number of years.
“Catchment has always been a problem, we’ve had to adjust catchment over the last ten or 15 years.”
The complexity of how to permanently fix capacity and catchment was briefly discussed at the meeting. Trustees noted the culture programs such as French Immersion brings to the school and the importance of maintaining that culture.
The Board of Education states it will continue with stakeholder involvement and consultation as it plans and initiates strategies to address student capacity challenges over the next five years.
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