Anglophone East School District makes changes to try and address overcrowding

A dozen schools within New Brunswick's Anglophone East School District are expected to look different in the coming years following a decision made Thursday night by the Education Council to address overcrowding within its schools.

“In the last month, we grew over 110 students,” said Anglophone East School Distract superintendent Randolph MacLEAN.

“110 new students just in the last month, from all over Canada and all over the world.”

The school board came forward earlier this month with several proposals after seeing exponential growth across the entire district, including many schools being over capacity.

Thursday night brought forward decisions that MacLEAN calls systemic changes across the entire system to respond to the situation.

“We’re currently moving 51 students, who can not attend their local school because it’s full,” said MacLEAN.

“So we’re moving 51 students around the district. We want kids to be able to go to their local school and we want to be able to respond to that. These changes are in response to that.”

He says the decisions will be rolled out in two parts.

Providing a summary, MacLEAN says no boundary changes will be implemented in Shediac, but four portables will be added to address the immediate need. Additionally, he says a new school will be under construction next year.

Portables are also being added to Lou MacNarin in Dieppe, while officials continue to look at what a boundary change could look like down the road.

Maplehurst Middle School and Northrop Frye Elementary School, in the northern part of Moncton, both have changes expected to be rolled out for the 2024/2025 school year. 

MacLEAN says Northrop Frye will be converted to a Kindergarten to Grade 4 school and Maplehurst will become a Grade 5-8 school.  He says with this change all students will attend Harrison Trimble High School.

There is also a school under construction on the Bernice MacNaughton Campus, which MacLEAN says is expected to be a middle school when it opens.

He says once this school opens in 2024/2025 it will cause a domino effect for other changes within the district: Bessborough will become a Kindergarten to Grade 5 school, Edith Cavell will become a Kindergarten to Grade 5 school and Hillcrest will be reimaged as a learning facility.

However, schools in Riverview will see changes happen this coming September.

“Riverview East will become a Kindergarten through grade 5 school and that school will transition between 550 to 580 students with space for enrolment growth and then it makes Riverview Middle School about 775 with space for normal growth there as well,” said MacLEAN.

He says Riverview East is already over capacity, however, the solution doesn’t feel like the right answer for Shiekera and Glen Roy Smith, who have a child in Grade 2 there.

“People are moving every day so I think this issue is not going to go away because where we live, the houses have doubled since we moved there two years ago,” said Glen Roy.

“So I don’t think the solution is changing the structure of the school, re-zoning probably would have made a little more sense, but for me the change in structure of a school is not the right move.”

He adds, he believes the decision was made before parents had the chance to weigh in on it.

“To me it’s putting the ox before the cart and this was a rushed decision,” he said.

Shiekera put forward a petition to keep Riverview East a k-8 school when the decision came out, that has over 350 signatures on it.

“It’s not too late, it’s still not too late and I’m hoping that they don’t fail us,” she said.

“However far we need to take this, however much we can get this brought to the limelight, we’re going to do that. This is unfair what you’re doing to kids.”

She has also presented several solutions to the district and government officials including redirecting new students to schools that have space, update the requirements needed for parents to enroll their children, including proof of address, and “grandfather” the current students until the end of tenure.

“[Thursday] kids wore two hearts on their cheeks,” she said.

“Parents suggested it. In the middle of one heart was RES, in the middle of one heart was k-8. The teachers, the students, their hearts are shattered right now for the instability.”

While her child is in Grade 2, she says she is fighting for all of the students who are going to be impacted by the change.

“When I see my child, at any school or any institution, that instruction is apart of me,” she said.

“So the substance of that institution will affect my child and other children so I don’t just consider ‘oh I only have a child there,’ all of these kids I consider them connected to me some how. These are her friends, this is her surrounding.”

Meanwhile, comments online were mixed after the decisions were made public. Some parents were speaking out in support for the solutions that the district came up with, but others were very upset.

“This is the second and third step to an ongoing process,” said MacLEAN.

“Part of those processes is when the new school comes online, both Hillcrest and Bessborough are supposed to come offline. We’ve made a request to the provincial government, there’s been a commitment that we’re able to keep those two schools that’s why there’s reconfiguring there to respond to growth. At the same time I’ll be going to the district education council in May to request new schools.”

He says these are the decisions the district will be moving forward with, but they will continue to evolve to meet the needs within the schools.