No more 'cells & bells': Sackville committee proposes new 21st-century school

A committee in Sackville calling itselfSackville Schools 2020is hoping to "hit the reset button" on education in New Brunswick with a new kind of community school that would replace the elementary, middle and high schools in the small town.

Committee member and Mount Allison professor Michael Fox said the group has already met with Premier Brian Gallant and Education Minister BrianKenny and made a presentation to the Anglophone East district education council to push the idea to build a school that would be the first of its kind in the province.

Why do 90 per cent of our students have to take a bus? Why not take a school that's builtand integrated within the community?- Michael Fox

"Our shared vision is a collaborative set of spaces where students can work with each other, teach each other, help each other through problem solving," Fox said. "It isn't a bunch of hallways with cinder blocks."

In Sackville, about 1,000 students are enrolled at Salem Elementary, Marshview Middle and Tantramar Regional High Schools and enrolment is declining.

"They're all old and tired," Fox said of the schools. "These buildings are built on a factory model basically cells and bells a teacher at the front of the classroom, nice rows of desks ... you listen, I talk, you memorize, you write the test."

Committee member andfather Brian Neilson argues education has to evolve, and a new building would help New Brunswick students and teachers achieve a hands-on, project-basedcurriculum that leads to meaningful learning experiences.

Carrots, across the ages

"Imagine you have your Grade 5 students learning about the lifecycle of plants, and in particular carrots, so they plant some carrots," Neilson explained.

"Then those carrots go to the high school, where the culinary class prepares them and then they get served up in the cafeteria at the school."

Neilson, who is also a cook, said a community member like himself could go into the classroom in this kind of "participatory model" and teach the students to turn those carrots into soup.

Karen Sears, aSackville Schools 2020 member and mother, said the final design of a new school isn't set, but it would have flexible spaces that would allow classes to be combined and lots of communal spaces, so students could work in small groups.

"[It would have] more integration with the outdoors and indoors ... so it's not cookie cutter, it's reflective of the environment and the community that they're in," Sears said.

Mount A would be anchor

The new school, whether it be one large school with different wings for elementary, middle and high school, or three separate schools, mayevenbe part of the Mount Allison University campus, Fox said.

It's really hard to have a child come home and say the only thing they really enjoy about their week is gym.- Agnes Koller

Members of Mount A's administration are part of an advisory committee and Fox said he hopes the schools will share resources with the publicly funded campus.

"Why don't we poolthese resources so the university becomes a physical anchor, as it has been for over a century," Fox said."But it's also apedagogicalthoroughfare, where students can get ahead."

Fox said that rather than funding three struggling schoollibraries and the university library, government money could instead be pooled to create one superlibrary shared by students at all levels.

He also pointed to buildings such as Mount Allison's Convocation Hall, which he said is empty for much of the year.

"We have schools that don't have enough room to have an assembly and have all of the parents and grandparents at aChristmasconcert," Fox said. "Why not open this to the community and have our schools integrated into the university."

Another big benefit of building a new school in the centre of town, near Mount Allison,would be that more students could walk to school every day.

Fox said that's something members of the district education council and Sackville Schools are excited about.

"Why do 90 per cent of our students have to take a bus? Why not take a school that's builtand integrated within the community? Can you imagine if we got rid of four or five school buses, how many hundreds of thousands of dollars taxpayers would save every year? How much healthier our children would be?"

Parents, students respond

The committee has been meeting for nearly two years and much of its work to date has focused on finding out what the community wants.

The committee surveyed 100 students, and Neilsonsaid he was struck by how low theirexpectations were, with many asking for classrooms with windows and classrooms with heat.

"To not have any of them say, 'Oh, it'd be great if we had a pool. Oh, it'd be great if we had a greenhouse connected to a cafeteria' ... that's the thing that stuck out to me personally, not so much that they wanted something but that they didn't want more. That they couldn't imagine deserving more."

Agnes Koller, a mother of two who is trained as a teacher, said she is working with the committee in hopes of making school a place where students are excited and enthusiastic about their learning.

"It's really hard to have a child come home and say the only thing they really enjoy about their week is gym," Koller said. "And I think that's great I'm glad that they enjoy gym but all learning should be fun.

"There's so many resources in our community and people that can come in and make things, hands on, build things and create things ... it doesn't have to be so monotonous and so repetitive and just boring. Learning can be exciting."

Minister sees need for change

In October, Education Minister Brian Kennypointed to his government's 10-year education plan as the way forward for the province.

In an interview with CBC he was asked about declining test scores of students and admitted there was a lot of room for improvement.

"This is not new, we've got to change the way we're doing education here in New Brunswick." Kenny said.

• Brian Kenny says low student test scores are 'not that good'
• Gallant government reveals 10-year education plans

Members of the Sackville Schools 2020 committeebelieve their plan for a new 21st-century school that is integrated into the community and gives students the skills needed to be successful is in line with the provincial plan.

Craig Evans, a vice-president at a manufacturing company, often sees new hires andbelieves the new school has to havethe spaces for aproject-based curriculum that "lets kids drive more of the actual deliverables in the curriculum."

"So whether you're looking at a trade shop, where you want to build something, or you want to code something or you want to do something from anarts or performance standpoint the spaces are available for you to go and do that."

Evans said students who are able to solve problems and who persevereare the people companies want to hire.

"It's 'I'm going to work on this project, things are probably going to go wrong and I'm going to have to reach out and get some help before I can actually figure out how to get this done' ... and learning that when you're in Grade 3 or 4instead of when you're 21 is, I think, really helpful... and it's way more rewarding for the kids."

Evans believes a new school would also help to keep people in New Brunswick and attract young families.

An infrastructure review of the three Sackville schools is underway with results expected in May.