Star City School will be discontinuing Grade 7 to 12 beginning in the 2025-2056 school year.
The North East School Division (NESD) board of education ratified the decision at their regular meeting on Sept. 19. Students will have the choice of attending either Tisdale Middle and Secondary School (TMSS) or Melfort and Unit Comprehensive Collegiate (MUCC).
“We’ll all work together to create a transition plan for those Grade 7-12 students,” NESD Director of Education Stacy Lair said. “It might be around new school orientation, or just getting comfortable with the new building that they will be going into.”
Lair said the board voted to discontinue Grade 7-12 on the recommendation of the School Community Council (SCC). She said there are several possibilities in the provincial legislation that give the SCC the authority to advise the board, but the board has the final decision.
She said that the next steps will be for the division to work with the SCC, families and staff at Star City School to ensure a smooth transition next school year. Star City is located in between Melfort and Tisdale.
“We’ll also review and share and get some feedback and make some decisions around how transportation will flow for those families as well,” Lair said.
“We also know that that families might work in one community or another and that might be some of what makes their feedback decisions to let the board and the school division know what they think is best for their students.”
On May 2, the SCC hosted a town hall, to share and collect feedback on grade discontinuance. On May 21, the SCC invited the community to attend a meeting to review the results of a second survey, which asked families in the Star City attendance area if they supported grade discontinuance.
The school principal and SCC Chair presented the survey results to the SCC. Board Chair Lori Kidney, Director Stacy Lair, Principal Robert Unruh, and five SCC and community members attended the meeting.
The decision also came after a motion was passed at the Aug. 21 Star City SCC meeting recommended the discontinuance of Grade 7 to 12. At the August regular board meeting the board approved a motion for four families to move to the Tisdale catchment area for transportation once the grade discontinuance was approved.
Star City School currently has an enrolment of 44 students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 as of Sept. 5.
Lair said it’s possible the school could move to an alternative calendar system, where students have a longer school day, but end their school year earlier. Schools in White Fox and Arborfield already have that system in place. Their final day of school will by Friday, June 17, while the rest of the division finishes on Thursday, July 26.
Lair said that Arborfield, which discontinued Grade 7 to 12 to start the 2024-2025 school year after a school review process and a series of contentious meetings, while White Fox has had an alternate calendar for several years.
“We have some really good feedback from our community, from families and from staff that that really works well and it makes us a sustainable little school and I think a big positive for those communities. For those families, they’ve seen that alternate calendar is creating some added benefits for them,” Lair said.
She said that Arborfield School has developed into a strong elementary school with positive enrollment numbers.
“They have a strong little community—very active school—and community council,” she said. “The staff are really collaborative in there, working with the School Community Council and that alternative calendar as they’ve reported that that’s been a strength.
Lair acknowledged that the entire process can be difficult in rural Saskatchewan.
“Your school is the cornerstone of your community and nobody wants falling enrollment or anything like that and for that to be a factor,” she said.
“I appreciate very much the leadership of the School Community council to look in in terms of, not just their own children, but the whole community and what is best for students and what gives them the most equitable opportunities in terms of academic choice, in terms of athletic choice and social opportunities too with other students,” Lair said.
“(I) really appreciate the work that they did to look at all of those things for all students and create a (situation), I think, which was the right decision, to discontinue those grades and make sure that those students have those greater opportunity options in Tisdale and Melfort,” she added.
The grade discontinuance will come into effect on July 2, 2025.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
