Quesnel’s Board of Education has given staff the marching orders to do a catchment review in the District.
Superintendent Dan Lowndes says they anticipate getting started after the spring break.
“It is something that we need to get started on sooner than later with the anticipation of the opening of the new school in the fall of 2025. It’s a long process and there is a lot of work with stakeholders around the community because it will involve potential changes to bus routes and bus hubs and all sorts of things, so we want to make sure that we’re as thoughtful as we can.”
Lowndes says the timing is right because there will be room for more students at the new school.
“We were approved for not just for a replacement but for an expansion, and the expansion is to help accommodate some of the over capacity specifically in our southern schools. I think the max capacity will be in that 350 range, but again as we look at catchment review there is a process that takes some time, we don’t intend to just start moving kids from one school to move into a new Carson, it will be a process that happens over time.”
Lowndes says they are over capacity in Ecole Red Bluff Lhtako, Lakeview, Dragon Lake as well as other schools right now.
He says they haven’t established exactly who they will be meeting with to come up with catchment areas, but he does have an idea.
“There will definitely be a lot of consultation with school communities and parents, and even some of the user groups that have courtesy riders on our bus we’ll need to be engaging with so, like I said there are a lot of folks that use buses, and that’s just the bus piece. The actual catchment of who will be attending Carson Elementary I think there will be a lot of interest in that conversation as well, so we want to make sure that we’re providing time for those voices to be heard.”
Lowndes says there will still be a policy in place for out of catchment requests at the end of this process.
He anticipates that there may be a few parents who would like their child to go to a brand new Carson School.
