Thank you very much for contacting me regarding your thoughts and suggestions about how Allenby Jr. Public School accommodates full day kindergarten. Your collective correspondence illustrates the complexity of this issue and the community’s commitment to implementing the best solution when a perfect solution does not exist. While I am not a decision maker, I have served this community for ten years as City Councillor and strive to facilitate discussion and collective problem-solving of important local matters. I hope I can continue to provide this support with respect to this issue.
In this capacity, I have contacted Superintendent Jeff Hainbuch to discuss my initial thoughts. From my perspective, I feel that the community must do its utmost to protect services that at a minimum, provide quality care to students before and after school. I understand too, how unpalatable it would be to have children of the same family attend school in multiple locations because of insufficient space at the school. Lastly, I recognize that building new space is costly and the added student body will further stress the resources and amenities of a school that is already over-capacity. With less than 18 months to craft and execute a solution to this issue, I feel I must put my support behind adding two classrooms to the school provided it can be built in a cost effective manner and that steps are put into place to craft a longer-term solution to the enrollment challenges of the school. We can not ‘solve’ the problems for today and defer the difficult decisions for future neighbourhood families.
I look forward to continuing my conversations with local residents, sharing my opinion with those in a decision making capacity and should a new build be required, assisting with timely review of applications and other administrative matters pertaining to the City.
Please feel free to stay in touch with me with your continued thinking on the matter.
Karen Stintz
City Councillor, Ward 16