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Chilliwack parents, students rally and question board about alternative education plans

CHANCE school site won’t actually ‘close’ says staff, but will be used as a satellite site
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Youtube image Joseph Roberts, a student at CHANCE alternate school in Chilliwack, posed several questions to the school board on Tuesday.

Last week’s news that CHANCE-Shxwetetilthet Alternate school would be closing hit parents, staff and students hard.

The much-loved program is known for helping students through the tough middle school years, offering a smaller working environment, small teacher-to-student ratios, alternate courses that help students work through life issues, and even different approaches to time management and allowances for anxiety and stress management within the day.

It’s a model that seems difficult to copy in a larger, mainstream middle school environment. But that was what the school community was told last week, in a notice on the school’s website and through confirmation with the school district’s assistant superintendent Rohan Arul-pragasam.

But at Tuesday night’s board meeting, where a presentation was planned for the new vision of alternative education delivery in this district, the staff and even some trustees backed away from last week’s message entirely, saying the school site will not be closing. Instead, it will be used as a place-based learning centre, while alt ed students will mostly be located at the current Ed Centre site, or “hub.”

But other than keeping the building open for potential future use, there is no solid plan for the CHANCE site, superintendent Evelyn Novak added.

“We’re not sure what we’re going to be offering there yet,” Novak said.

CHANCE-Shxwetetilthet Alternate school caters to middle school age students, and currently has about 44 students. Many of those students would be going off to the Ed Centre or back into mainstream high schools in the fall, from Grade 9 to Grade 10. And because of grade reconfiguration, the same is true for CHANCE’s current Grade 8 students, who will now be heading off to Grade 9.

But the rest of the students at CHANCE, and there are only a handful in the lower grades, are also going to be moving to the Ed Centre it was announced on Tuesday night, not into the regular middle schools, as was suggested last week.

That change, and the changing of the wording around “closure” of CHANCE, had many people who attended Tuesday’s meeting wondering when these decisions were made and approved by the board, if not in an open meeting. When questioned about the changes, board chair Paul McManus said the board supports staff decisions.

However, during discussions Trustee Heather Maahs spoke up to voice her concerns with the plans. She reminded the board that she was the one who initially raised the motion to merge the Education Centre and CHANCE a year ago. But at the time, the plan was part and parcel with a new alternative education site. While that’s still in the cards down the road, there is no clear timeline for a new site, no site chosen, and no funding in place for such a project.

Maahs clarified the spirit of the motion made last year was surrounding the creation of a new Alternate Education site, and added that if she knew this is how “it would play out,” she wouldn’t have made the motion, much less voted in favour of it. She also pointed out that they just approved more than $850,000 to renovate the old Distance Education site for student services.

“The Ed Centre needs to be a priority,” she said. “We need to make sure we are looking actively for it … A team is only as strong as its weakest players. I’m very hopeful this new plan will be very successful – it’s kids at stake – but I’m very concerned.”

So are CHANCE students.

Joseph Roberts rose to speak twice to the board. He asked how students with anxiety are going to be supported at regular schools in the same way they are at CHANCE. This gave Arul-pragasam a chance to explain that the new middle school design, with students having one or two teachers in charge of them instead of the usual seven or eight, which will add consistency and mean that they will always have the same adult to connect with.

Often a CHANCE student may take a self-imposed time out, for example, by walking for a minute with a staff member around outside before rejoining the class. This is something that could still be done, with their new “inclusion teacher,” Arul-pragasam said.

Several parents and students rallied at the beginning of the meeting outside, to have their voices heard.

At the final question period, Roberts was attempting to ask a question about why students weren’t being transferred to CHANCE over the past while. McManus understood it to be a staffing question, and as such did not answer, and ended the meeting without calling out if anyone had anymore questions.

You can watch the full meeting by clicking here.



Jessica Peters

About the Author: Jessica Peters

I began my career in 1999, covering communities across the Fraser Valley ever since.
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