We don’t agree with RVS’ decision to put off a discussion about ward boundaries and the number of trustees that sit on its board. (See stories pages 2 and 3.)
The time is now to discuss changes in Rocky View Schools (RVS) division.
One of the largest in the province, RVS represents thousands of students over a large geographical area.
Students within Rocky View have diverse needs, and schools represent many different challenges, from long bus rides in the rural communities to overcrowding in Airdrie, the needs of each school vary.
That’s why it is important RVS address the current situation it has with its ward boundaries and imbalance of students represented by each trustee.
That imbalance is large.
In the community of Chestermere, which has the most students, one trustee represents more than 14,000 students, while the Bearspaw trustee represents about 6,400.
The difference is large enough that it poses a concern that students in the growing communities of Chestermere and Airdrie may not get their fair share of RVS’ resources.
Although we believe trustees do have the best interest of all of RVS’ students at heart, we fear it may be difficult to maintain subjectivity when sharing the resources allotted by the province, especially in what we believe will be a fiscally difficult budget.
It’s in the best interest of the students to have the board either add trustees to balance out representation with population or redraw the ward boundaries.
