Letter from Peace Arch to the District - Need Parents to Vote on

This is the letter that parents can vote on to support or not at the PAC meeting next Tuesday. 

If you cannot attend the meeting, please voice your comments, support or not either here (they will be passed along) or the school's PAC directly.  Thank you for your support of this super important issue. 

To: Surrey School District #36

From: Peace Arch Elementary PAC

On behalf of the parents of children currently attending Peace Arch Elementary School,

the Peace Arch Elementary PAC would like to express our disapproval of the new bell

schedule being contemplated at Earl Marriott High School.

Earl Marriott is the high school that both our geographic catchment and French

Immersion programs feed into. As such, decisions made at Earl Marriott Secondary

today impact the futures of our students and families. Indeed, many of the families

currently attending Peace Arch Elementary also have students that attend Earl Marriott

High School.

Today, the Peace Arch and Earl Marriott start and end times are quite complimentary to

each other enabling easy family arrangements. Parents can drop their student at Earl

Marriott and then arrive at Peace Arch when school yard supervision begins. Likewise,

pick-up is similarly complimentary. The new schedule disrupts this significantly. Start

and stop times will change from complimentary to 2 distinctly separate times (greater

than 30 min separation) for most, and for many 3 distinct start times should the family

consist of an elementary, junior and senior aged students. Morning and night, this leads to

2 hours of inefficiency for families that are already starved for time in a busy world.

Of particular note is the impact on our French Immersion program which attracts families

from throughout the area, not just our catchment. These families drive their children to

school as no bussing program exists. The separation of times between the schools is

beyond inefficient, it could stand as a barrier to the opportunity of learning that the

French Immersion program represents.

It is our belief that altering school start times does not address the reality that a building

can only house so many students. In the case of Earl Marriott, that is between 1200 and

1500 students. Staggering start times will do nothing other than cause an overcapacity of

students to be crammed into a school for an extra 80 minutes a day while students arrive

too early for their late start, or leave too late for their early dismissal. The math of this

proposal only works if students are mandated to leave the school when not scheduled in

class, there is no place for them to wait for their sibling. A school is not adequate unless

it can provide a safe learning environment for all of its students for as much time as they

need it.

The core issue that needs to be addressed is the overcrowding of Earl Marriott School

created by the extensive development of new neighbourhoods outside of the Peace Arch

catchment. This issue must be addressed by building the corresponding infrastructure

required to support this development.

Sincerely,