D. The search for solutions:

1. We are reluctant to participate in discussions about alternate use of space which may lead to closure of schools. We don’t want a sanitized third-party report which says we were the source of these suggestions. We want to know that all efforts have been made to keep the schools in the area open and be convinced on education and social grounds before we agree that closure is the right solution for our children.

2. In spite of the recession the Alberta Government seems to have billions of dollars to benefit corporations by paying for high-voltage power lines and expensive carbon-sequestration systems. We hear that the deficit is only going to be about half of what was projected. The Premier has taken credit for having set aside contingency funds for leaner times. With a lower deficit, there should be more money left in these contingency funds to re-establish reasonable education funding that would avoid these cutbacks.
We have had a petition presented in the Alberta Legislature on Nov. 26 with about 1300 names gathered by our Norwood parents. The petition asks that the Alberta Government do more to help inner-city schools. What has the School Board done to arguer the case with the Alberta Government?

3. Our students mostly come from hard-working, low-income families. These families my face greater barriers and have less opportunities. We would like to see “Sector Planning” that sets lower-enrollment targets and more resources for inner-city schools so they would be considered funded and viable at a different level than the system average. This would help compensate for other disadvantages and allow more individualized help. This investment would probably pay off in a fair chance for more successful lives and fewer social costs in the future. A variation from the average standards would result in a calculation that there was less unused space in our schools than is now claimed.
We also think the traditional 1.6 km (one mile) walking distance is not a reasonable standard in modern times. We are no longer walking along country roads with cows in the fields and grasshoppers in the ditches. Student time and effort is not the sole criteria for a reasonable distance these days.

4. We would like to see educational goals and policies that result in programs which would retain and attract our fair share of the student population and take the pressure off our existing schools.

5. We would like the City to take an interest in the school question if they are serious about neighbourhood renewal and affordable housing for families. Perhaps they have small-function offices or area programs that could be sited in vacant school facilities without disrupting school operations. Perhaps they could find low-cost recreation staff to run programs that would essentially and beneficially provide after-school care to students of working parents until the end of the workday. Perhaps they could offer attractive student transit-pass rates to inner-city attendees so we would draw as many students into the area as we have travelling out of the area and thus keep our schools viable until renewal of the area is completed.

6. Our school programs and benefits may not be known to new families moving into the area. We should see that our local families are circulated with the best information that we can devise so they will give serious consideration to the local schools at registration time.

7. We would like the School Board to accurately identify the space available and attempt to solve it without closing schools or programs that a better plan would consider desirable for the inner-city education needs and objectives. We are not the ones who are able and qualified to spearhead that effort but we would like to be kept informed of plans and proposals.

8. Neighbourhoods always go through cycles. New houses are built in new areas and families start clamouring for schools. By the time the schools get built there the older students have graduated. Soon the younger members of these families grow up and leave the schools with declining enrolments for a generation or more until mortality and moving of the first settlers starts to bring young families into the area again. The area never gets back to its first maximum student population.
City planning should see that enough affordable family spaces get built near schools to ensure that a viable quota of young families will inhabit the area at all times.
School boards might look to ways of making schools more flexible with a basic unit of 6 or 8 rooms plus a library, gym and resource room. Other wings or pods could be portable or designed to be converted to other uses when the class sizes diminish in the area.
The Community League might even be housed at the school with the gym providing community hall functions and the rinks and diamonds being available for both the school and the community. Let’s look for more co-operation and efficiencies in the future. Perhaps some of our current community leagues could move their operations to the schools and their grounds and facilities could be converted to other uses.