South shore school shakeup

Big catchment changes are on the horizon for Kamloops’ south shore, with the district’s newest school poised to welcome students in two years.

The $65-million, 453-seat Sníne elementary school officially broke ground last June and is expected to be completed by September 2026, barring any delays.

Once the school opens, sweeping catchment changes will level out the space pressures on the overburdened south shore and pull students to Sníne.

Rhonda Nixon, SD73 superintendent, said consultation with the impacted schools, staff and parents is underway, and will likely change the proposed catchment changes before they are finalized.

“You have to take the exactness with a little bit of latitude, because we're basing it on two years from now, based on the exact scenario that's there now,” Nixon told Castanet Kamloops.

How will catchment change?

Nixon said elementary students in Pineview Valley will be the first to be bundled into the Sníne catchment area, and will take some students from McGowan Park, Dufferin and Aberdeen elementary schools.

“The assumptions are that we try to keep people, their families, close to schools so that we're not bussing them further, but in this case Aberdeen is just too full,” she said.

“It's the lower Aberdeen area that is affected by the attachment change that would go to Sníne.”

Students at Summit elementary will be balanced out once Sníne opens and more space becomes available at McGowan Park.

“Why not do that catchment change earlier? Because both schools are too full, so there was no point. We hit a point on the southwest it just became futile,” Nixon said.

Students in Savona, Tobiano and Cherry Creek areas will also be included in the Sníne catchment area. Nixon said while some parents had concerns about long bus rides, there is currently little SD73 can do given the distance.

When Sníne does open, space will be left for future growth, including from the neighbouring Copperhead Drive development.

Without Sníne opening, SD73 predicts McGowan Park will reach 155 per cent capacity by 2026, Summit would reach 127 per cent, Dufferin would reach 159 per cent and Aberdeen elementary would reach 141 per cent.

Nixon said it was possible that portables might need to be moved around the south shore once the catchment changes are ironed out, but none would likely be added. She said Sníne doesn’t have the geographical space to accommodate any portables.

Will impact high schools

With students moving between elementary schools, the proposed catchment changes would alter enrolment feeding into South Kamloops secondary and Sa-Hali secondary.

Nixon said a new high school is still needed to address the space crunch on the south shore.

The school district received provincial funding approval to purchase land for a new high school in Aberdeen earlier this year, which is SD73’s top capital priority. Board chair Heather Grieve joined Kamloops city council this year at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in September to advocate for the new school.

Nixon said the school district continues to advocate and meet with with local MLAs and Lisa Beare, the new minister of education and child care.

Consultation with each of the schools' staff and parent advisory committees is underway, and two public webinars will be held for parents to ask questions and voice concerns — on Dec. 4 and Dec. 10.

“Then what I do is our staff meets and I say to each of them, whether its transportation or facilities, what can we do? These are the concerns, so how could we redraw an area?” Nixon said.

“After that, we take it to the board and then we go back out again and we take everything back out to all the communities one by one. Then we’ll have the decision made.”

She said the catchment changes will be finalized by June of next year, or sooner.