There will be two fewer schools in the Battle River School Division next fall, the board announced after a meeting last Thursday.
Trustees voted in favour of permanently closing Lougheed School and Rosalind School, effective this June 28.
“The closure discussions at these sites began as a result of ongoing low enrolments in those schools and the school division’s growing concern that, given current economic and population realities, the current educational programming could not be maintained at those sites in the future,” said Diane Hutchinson, the board’s communications co-ordinator. “Both schools were projecting grades 1 to 9 enrolments in the low 40s next year.”
“These were not easy decisions, or decisions that anyone on the board made lightly,” board chairman Doug Bowie said in a news release.
“Closure of a school would never be our first choice. We recognize that the impact of decisions such as these is far reaching and we’ve tried many things over the years to keep our smallest schools viable.
“But at the heart of our decision-making is our mandate to educate children. I know every board member cast their vote based on what they believe to be in the best future educational interests of the children we serve.”