Millarville parents discuss benefits to grade configuration

The benefits of adding Grade 9 to one of the area’s smallest schools outweighed the negatives at a public meeting on Sept. 10.
Approximately 70 parents gathered around tables in the Millarville Community School (MCS) gymnasium to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of adding Grade 9 to the K-8 school after the Foothills School Division board of trustees passed a notice of motion in January to allow for the change to grade configuration to K-9.
The board will collect information from the consultation and another in Black Diamond on Sept. 24 before making a decision at its Nov. 13 meeting.
Kate Lomas, who has a daughter in Grade 8 and another attending Foothills Composite High School in Okotoks, said she strongly supports the addition of Grade 9 at the school.
“Overall it just comes down to Millarville is such a special community,” she said. “My husband and I moved here for the school and community when our daughter was in Grade 1. It’s a phenomenal community to be a part of because you feel so supported as a parent.”
Lomas describes the teachers as inclusive and caring, catering to each child’s needs. She said her daughters benefited from mentoring younger students and the sports programs at MCS.
While Lomas is confident her eldest daughter was provided with the necessary skills to succeed in her senior year of junior high, she said she missed the MCS environment.
“When (she) was in Grade 9 she said, ‘I wish I could go back to Millarville,’” said Lomas. “She missed the small personal feel of it and the ability for teachers to cater to something she wants to learn.”
Lomas said adding the final year of junior high would help preserve the community and its youth.
“We talk about Millarville being this bubble, well it really is,” she said. “We don’t have cell service, there’s no 7-Eleven to go to, there’s no drugs, smoking, vaping, that just wouldn’t happen here.
“At other schools they are exposed to those things. The longer the kids are able to stay within our community in that little bubble we have it’s a benefit to them and it helps them grow as leaders, too.”
Other benefits noted by parents were reducing anxiety around transitioning schools in junior high, smaller class sizes at MCS in Grade 9, maintaining relationships with teachers and the community, the likelihood of MCS qualifying for the junior high IB (International Baccalaureate) program and the potential to attract more students.
Negative impacts mentioned were limited optional classes, split classes at MCS, more strain on the fundraising committee and reduced enrolment and teaching staff at Oilfields.
Parents were told the loss of Grade 9 MCS students at Oilfields could result in a .5-.7 full-time equivalent teacher reduction.

Foothills School Division chairman Larry Albrecht told parents trustees will review their comments before making a decision this fall.
“Each of us will look at that and debate it and make a decision based on the information,” he said. “No comment will go unnoticed.
“Anything you share will be recorded and brought to us.”
In 2011, the school board initiated public consultation for grade configuration at MCS, but kept it as is after reviewing data. However, the board agreed to reconsider grade configuration in the future if a request comes forward.
MCS school council submitted a request to the board in May 2018.
Ingrid Rozema, school council member and a mother to boys in Grades 5 and 7, said parents are “super happy with how things are” at the school.
“If you look at what a school brings a community, it enhances the foundation,” she said. “The kids know each other, the parents know each other. When you lose the school you lose the community feeling.”
Rozema said there’s often anxiety around deciding where students will attend Grades 7 and 8.
“If we had Grade 9, that solidifies that junior high experience and the knowledge that they’re going to be here until Grade 9,” she said.
“Junior high is not the greatest time to become the new kid in school. There’s that whole underlying anxiety that starts in Grade 6 and continues into Grades 7 and 8.”
Rozema said if MCS wasn’t to offer Grade 9, it might as well lose Grades 7 and 8.
“Are we doing our kids a service by keeping them here?”
Millarville, originally a K-9 school, was reconfigured to K-8 in 1987 following a request from the community to move the Grade 9s to Oilfields for ease of transition, access to high school programming and crowding at MCS.
Information provided to parents at the Sept. 10 session showed MCS is at around 70 per cent capacity. The addition of Grade 9 would bring it closer to 80 per cent.
It also showed the utilization rate at Oilfields High School is just under 59 per cent, and expected to increase to 74 per cent by 2022. Alberta Education considers optimal usage at 85 per cent.
Results of a survey taken by MCS students and parents reveal 64.9 per cent of students and 93.8 per cent of parents indicated interest in Grade 9 at MCS. Interest dropped when asked their opinion if option classes remain the same and classes were split grades.
A consultation will be held at Oilfields High School in Black Diamond Sept. 24 at 6:30 p.m. for parents of students attending the high school and feeder schools in Black Diamond, Turner Valley and Longview. Parents can also share their thoughts via online submissions at fsd38.ab.ca