Upset about changes happening to her school next year, one Stettler girl has decided to take her concerns to the top.
Kaycee Coenen, 15, a Grade 9 student at Stettler Outreach School, said switching schools has had a radical impact on both her grades and her outlook about her education.
“People were a lot more friendly, and so were the teachers,” she said, comparing her experience at the Outreach School to the local high school. “It almost threw my head for a loop.”
Coenen said she was concerned over changes that will affect all of Stettler’s public schools, including her own, for the 2015-2016 school year.
So she decided to write a letter to Clearview Public Schools superintendent Peter Barron about those changes, asking him to reconsider.
In January, school board trustees approved a new grade configuration for the school complex, which would see the elementary school expand to include Kindergarten through Grade 6 and the current middle and high schools merged into a “secondary learning centre” covering grades 7 through 12.
Since then, the board has approved other changes to schools in the district, such as expanding Botha School to include Kindergarten through Grade 6, bringing it into alignment with the changes to the Stettler schools.
A motion passed at the division board’s Feb. 24 meeting called for the Stettler Outreach School to be brought under the direction of the secondary learning centre.
Though it will remain in operation in a separate location, it will no longer have its own principal and thus would come under the leadership of the high school principal.
These changes are the ultimate result of several years’ worth of discussions, studies and consultations.
Barron was tasked in October with reviewing “the issues pertaining to schools in the Town of Stettler through staff, student and parent engagement, and to provide the Board with recommendations for their resolution in January 2015.”
The current configuration has been blamed for various issues, such as budgetary concerns, problems with sharing of resources and facilities, and an awkward transition into high school for students arriving from the division’s smaller rural schools.
Parents, students and other community members had the opportunity to offer their final input through an electronic survey, introduced at an open house in January.
In her letter, Kaycee explains that she left William E. Hay Composite High School due to issues with the staff and students.
She told the Independent that she struggled in class but was afraid to ask for help.
“Some of the kids would pick on me and call me stupid,” she said. “I just said, ‘Screw it.’”
After talking with her parents and school administrators, she had hoped to finish her semester at William E. Hay and then explore other options. Through some misunderstanding, however, she suddenly found herself without a school in mid-December, she said.
Shortly before Christmas, she began attending the outreach school, which she likened to a “family.”
She said she’s gone from failing her courses to seeing grades up around the 80 to 90 per cent mark. She also said that principal Roe Desrosiers has become “like a second father” to her.
“I would be very upset if his position was taken from him,” she wrote. “(The staff) treat us with respect, and in return, we respect them all back.”
She also expressed her concern — echoed by others during the open house in January — that students in grades 7 and 8, like her younger brother, would be more vulnerable to bullying by high school students under the new configuration.
In closing, she asked Barron to rethink the decision, to “leave things the way they are now” and to respond to her.
Barron, who spoke to the Independent on Monday night, had not yet received Kaycee’s letter at that point, but said he appreciated her input, as well as the concerns other parents, students and staff have expressed about the changes.
The school division is hosting an open house for parents and the community at William E. Hay Composite High School on Wednesday, March 18, beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Barron said he looks forward to the discussions that will follow, both to explain some of the changes that are coming, and to seek public input on decisions that have yet to be made.
“If we haven’t thought of something, then we welcome their best ideas,” he said.
He said many concerns have been raised in conversations, some of them legitimate and others that “we don’t think will come to pass” — but, he added, the division wants to hear what people are thinking. In regards to bullying, he said he feels most of the fears are unfounded, based partly on his experience as the administrator of a Grade 7 to 12 school.
“We don’t have a history of kids bullying younger students,” he said. “We have a very low incidence (of this behaviour) . . . I have a lot of faith in our kids.”
Barron said that the students will continue to be well supervised, many of their activities and courses will remain in the same locations with the same teachers, and appropriate boundaries will be set to deter any trouble.
Regarding the outreach school, he said the changes should be beneficial in opening up new opportunities along with access to high school resources, including graduation exercises, field trips and extracurricular activities.
He also said the division has a responsibility to look for efficiencies, particularly with the “really tough” provincial budget that is anticipated on March 26, which could see the division faced with significant cutbacks of up to eight or nine per cent.
“We’re also stewards of the public purse,” he said. “We have to be very clever with how we spend our money.”
Barron acknowledged that there may be a sense of loss with the changes, as the high school and middle school will essentially be replaced with a “new entity,” possibly with a new name.
He also anticipated that parents are going to be “very curious” and perhaps anxious about what’s on the horizon, just as staff members had been.
Barron said he wants to reassure parents that the school division is striving to increase opportunities while maintaining their students’ safety.
“We’re going to look after their children — I mean, that’s what we do,” he said. “We’re not going to put them at risk, we’re not going to be foolhardy with their safety.”
Coenen’s father, Michael, who recently joined the council for the outreach school as its chairman, said he’s concerned about what he called a lack of transparency in the division’s decision-making process.
“There’s just so much we don’t know,” he said. “We’re worried about the welfare of our kids.”
Michael said he understands change is necessary and overdue, but added he and other parents want to make sure it’s being done the right way.
He cited the January survey as an example, noting that the results were never released to the public, reportedly due to concerns over privacy.
“I honestly don’t even know if they’ve got a bloody plan,” he said. “They’ve got some great ideas . . . That’s great, but there’s no plan.”
He is also concerned that the changes will destroy the essence of what makes the Outreach School different, and which has proven so beneficial for his daughter.
“Outreach is about the student, not about the subject,” he said, explaining that he
finds the high school prepares students for one particular path while the outreach approach helps them to become a “well-rounded person.”
“This is why these kids want to speak out,” he said. “All I want to do is make sure they’re being heard.”