Parents of children at Bridge Lake School are very concerned about the start of the new school year.

School District 27 has reduced the number of teachers and classes, leaving just two classrooms with four grades in each class.

In June, the parents protested the decision with demonstrations outside the school.

Tanya Lucente, parent, said the board is able to implement a substitute teacher after the first week of the school once the principal has phoned in with the official head count.

She said, apparently, a few other schools have had their teaching staff cut back to bare bones, too, so the district could save a few dollars by not appointing a full-time teacher until the middle of October.

“So how does this affect our children’s education?

“Disruption with being moved

into different classrooms after being settled and then a different teacher? Where is the structure? What happens to their comfort zone? How much learning time is lost in what seems to be a shorter school year?” said Lucente.

The parents have been working with professionals (accountants,

lawyers, engineers and entrepeneurs) to find solutions to what they call

the many operational errors within the district.

“When we started to investigate why the Bridge Lake Community School was having their teaching time cut, (even though the Ministry of Education is not cutting funds but adding), we had no idea of the waste of money happening within our school district,” she said.

Lucente said all schools need to be reviewed in the way they manage their day-to-day operations as well as administration.

She said they cannot continue the way they have for the past 30 years.

Lucente said the government has new guidelines on how the district should operate by fully utilizing a school building, cutting administrative costs and working toward becoming carbon neutral.