Final bell rings June 30 for Chapman School

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/06/2016 (3686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Education Minister Ian Wishart has signed off on the closing of 73-year-old Chapman School.

June 30 will be the final day for the tiny school built with scarce materials and manpower during World War Two.

Enrolment has been steadily dwindling but the building will last at least one more year — Westgate Mennonite Collegiate will lease the building for one year in September during construction at its grades 7 to 12 school in Armstrong’s Point.

And most crucially for school boards in Manitoba hoping the new provincial government elected April 19 might let them close other small schools with declining enrolment, Wishart made it clear he will not lift the moratorium on closures imposed by the NDP in 2008.

Parents of the remaining 51 Chapman students in the city’s smallest public school have voted with their feet by asking Pembina Trails School Division to transfer all their children to Royal School for September.

The only way a public school can be closed in Manitoba is by parents emptying the school and taking their kids elsewhere, literally leaving enrolment at zero, or by a school’s having such grave structural problems that it makes no sense to fix it up.

Graysville School closed after parents moved the last few kids into Carman, Reyonds Community School in Prawda closed when the final seven children switched to Whitemouth or Falcon.

Pembina Trails School Division superintendent Ted Fransen said the division will save $450,000 a year by not keeping Chapman open.

“No one is losing a job,” he pointed out.

Even though the Pallister government is looking for efficiencies and ways to reduce spending, the moratorium stays.

The new government is all about improving the quality of education, not saving money on education, said a government source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Said Wishart through an aide: “We are focused on improving educational outcomes for Manitoba students.

“The Pembina Trails School Division has noted that the parents of children who attend Chapman School have requested that their children be allowed to attend the nearby Royal School. Therefore, in accordance with the provisions of The Public Schools Act, the Pembina Trails School Division has been authorized to close Chapman School, and has been instructed to continue to accommodate the needs of Chapman Day Care.

“We are not considering lifting the moratorium on closing small schools,” declared Wishart.

When the NDP suddenly imposed the moratorium eight years ago, school trustees had voted to close 13 schools across the province on June 30 of 2008 or 2009.

Fransen would not release how much Westgate will pay to lease the school. “The province said it would be cool to any lease that lasted more than a year,” he said.

When the Free Press first reported six weeks ago that Chapman parents had emptied the school, “The ink on your story was hardly dry when the phone started ringing,” Fransen said.

“The timing was almost divine — we needed something for just a year,” Westgate principal Bob Hummelt said Friday.

Westgate plans major reconstruction of the grades 7 to 12 school, which has more than six times Chapman’s enrolment.

“It’s going to be tight in that building,” said Hummelt, who’s negotiating additional space in Chapman’s area, including gym time at a community centre he’s not naming until arrangements are final.

Hummelt assured people in Charleswood that the one-year move would not create traffic and parking problems. “Very few of our kids take vehicles here,” he said. “The 67 bus stops right at the door.

“There’s wonderful bike paths there – I cycle right past Chapman on my way to Westgate” from his home in St. James, Hummelt said.

Fransen said that Pembina Trails will soon begin exploring the future of the school and the property. Provincial rules require it be offered to public bodies first.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca