Population growth in south Winnipeg, Selkirk sends Grade 9 students to high schools, prompts Grade 5-8 changes

September 2, 2024 Canuck

Hundreds of students in Winnipeg’s fastest-growing school division are graduating to new high schools and middle schools faster than they likely imagined.

As Pembina Trails grapples with a lack of space, the division has made changes to which grade levels attend 13 of its south Winnipeg schools beginning Wednesday — a shift that involves shuffling many students and staff to new buildings.

All Grade 9 students will now spend their entire high school careers under the same roof, rather than spending the first year in an otherwise middle-school environment and joining their older peers for Grade 10.

These moves will align Pembina Trails’ high schools with their counterparts across the province, with the exception of Selkirk-area schools, which plan to make similar grade adjustments for next year.

Pembina Trails assistant superintendent Troy Scott said rearranging 13 schools, along with last year’s tweaking to bus routes and start and end times for classes, marks the culmination of the division’s multi-year planning.

It’s a big change, but one students are excited about, he said.

Bigger schools, more choice

“The biggest question from kids is: What are my opportunities?” Scott said. They’re particularly interested in the school’s extracurricular activities and clubs, which are “a draw for kids socially,” he said.

The restructuring makes sense from an academic standpoint, too, said Scott.

He has worked in middle-year schools that had to balance the needs of Grade 9 students trying to get high school credits, while also supporting students in lower grades who still have a report card-based curriculum.

The change will “move kids more into that area where they need to be,” he said.

A man in a grey polo is standing in an office, as he speaks to two women who are seated. — Pembina Trails School Division assistant superintendent Troy Scott speaks with staff at Fort Richmond Collegiate, as they make final preparations for the upcoming school year. The building will welcome Grade 9 students for the first time this fall. (Ian Froese/CBC)

Fort Richmond and Vincent Massey schools will shift from offering Grade 10-12 to Grade 9-12 (Vincent Massey will remain a Grade 9-12 site for French-language students).

Pembina Trails Collegiate, which opened in 2023, is also now a Grade 9-12 school.

Meanwhile, the grade level adjustments in schools for younger students will free up space in south-end buildings nearing capacity due to a population boom, specifically in the Waverley West neighbourhood. Continued growth across the division brings an extra 700 to 850 students to Pembina Trails every year, Scott said.

Acadia will shift from a Grade 7-9 school to 6-8, while Arthur A. Leach will no longer have Grade 9 students, becoming a 5-8 building. The Grade 9 students who would have gone to those schools will head to Fort Richmond instead.

General Byng will become K-8 and Henry G. Izatt 5-8, with Grade 9 students going to Vincent Massey instead of those schools.

Buildings are under construction on both sides of a paved road. — The growing population in Waverley West is adding to the crunch for space in schools in the Pembina Trails School Division. (Rudy Gauer/CBC)

As well, several current K-6 schools — Bairdmore, Chancellor, Dalhousie, Oakenwald, Prairie Sunrise and Ralph Maybank — will shift to K-5.

That’s because some Grade 6 students would occasionally travel to middle schools to access programming such as industrial arts classes, Scott said.

Putting those students into a middle-years building permanently will expose them to extracurricular opportunities and school events better suited to their age group, he said.

Selkirk adjusting grades for 2025

Next fall, Lord Selkirk School Division will undergo a similar school reconfiguration that will funnel all Grade 9 students into the Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School in the city of Selkirk, and nearly all Grade 6 students into middle schools.

That will introduce students to a greater breadth of opportunities, said superintendent Jerret Long.

For example, high school educators are planning to relaunch a sampler-style offering where Grade 9 students try three vocational courses over the course of a year, Long said.

A man in a checkered blue and white shirt and blue-framed glasses stands on a lawn in front of a school. — Lord Selkirk School Division superintendent Jerret Long says the adjusted early years, middle years and seniors years model will best meet the needs of his division’s students. (Travis Golby/CBC)

Under the current structure, students may only get a taste of some of these classes in Grade 10, which is a year of transition for students acclimatizing themselves to a new environment and, in the case of some rural students, a city, Long said.

“It’s so much easier to plan ahead instead of retroactively looking back and saying, ‘I wish I had done this,’ and trying to get into programs that sometimes are full,” he said.

The division will create Grade 6-8 middle schools out of East Selkirk, École Selkirk and Lockport.

Meanwhile, all existing K-6 schools in the division, except for École Bonaventure, will shed Grade 6: Centennial, Daerwood, Happy Thought, Mapleton, Robert Smith, Ruth Hooker, St. Andrews and William S. Patterson.

Long said division administrators have wanted to make these changes for some time, but there was added impetus with growth in Selkirk, specifically in the city’s west end.

New kids showing up

The city’s Robert Smith School, for example, has reduced the size of its library to make space and sometimes has two classes sharing the gymnasium.

Kristy Magnusson, who serves on the school’s parent advisory council, said her youngest daughter, Rachel — who is entering Grade 5 — has noticed the influx in new families.

“She would come home quite often saying, ‘somebody new is coming into my class,’ or ‘we got a new kid,’ or ‘somebody else is walking down the hallway with the principal looking at the school.'”

A young girl with blonde hair has a small smile as she looks down at her school supplies laying on the table. — Rachel Magnusson, 9, was initially bummed she wouldn’t get to spend Grade 6 at Robert Smith School next fall, but she changed her mind when she realized she may end up getting a cellphone one year earlier. (Ian Froese/CBC)

Given the space crunch, Magnusson understands the division’s rationale, even if there’s a tinge of sadness to knowing she’ll only be an “elementary school mom” for one more year.

Rachel was bummed as well, but then the nine-year-old remembered what her sister got when she entered a new school: her first cellphone.

“Now my soon-to-be junior-higher thinks she’s getting a cellphone in Grade 6,” Magnusson said.

Rachel is making her case already.

“And now we just are trying to ignore it for this year,” said Magnusson, chuckling.

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