Clarenville parents protest cuts to schools and education

Concerned parents of students at Riverside Elementary School in Clarenville held a demonstration Saturday morning to protest against cuts to education in the most recent provincial budget.

Dave Harris is the former chair of the school council at Riverside Elementary and has a son in Grade 4 at the school. He estimated that there were "a couple hundred people" at the demonstration, and representatives from the town, the NLTA and NAPE in attendance. 

Many of the parents at the protest were concerned that the elementary school is too crowded, particularly in the cafeteria during lunchtime, and expansion work to the school has been put on hold. 

They're having some serious issues with a lack of space.- Dave Harris

Harris said the school population continued to grow following the amalgamation of Clarenville Primary and Belville Elementary. Riverside Elementary was updated and expanded when the schools were amalgamated, but there are now 735 students, and that's too many according to Harris.

"They're having some serious issues with a lack of space," he said.

"The cafeteria itself is not big enough to handle the student population, so lunch breaks are staggered, and even with that, there are 300 kids crammed into a very small area."

Harris said there are also issues with the size of the gymnasium and classroom space. Physical education classes were forced to be decreased in size and three portable classrooms were added, with plans for two more portables this year.

There was also a plan in place to build six new classrooms, convert the gym to a full size cafeteria and construct a new gym, but those plans were halted in the latest budget.

"With the recent budget cuts that were announced, unfortunately, all those plans were cut from the recent budget, and not just postponed, but cut indefinitely," he said.  

"There's no long term plan to address these issues. Basically, the only solution was to add more portables and to live with the cafeteria and gym issues." 

Harris said it isn't just Riverside Elementary that has issues with overcrowding, the whole school system is full.

"We're very concerned as parents with the school system, and we'd like to see some long term plans and some investment from government," he said.

"We're asking the school board to sit down with us, work with us, see if we can come up with a solution in the short-term and long-term, and hopefully get the support of the provincial government to move forward with some solutions.