Parents of Spanish bilingual students upset over move to S.W.
Posted Jan 17, 2014 12:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Parents and kids enrolled in the Spanish bilingual program at Westgate Elementary School showed up Friday at the Calgary Board of Education offices in downtown Calgary, with signs and a 1,000 signature petition for Naomi Johnson, chief superintendent.
The reason for the demonstration was concern over the program relocating to the underused Eugene Coste Elementary School in the southwest.
For parents it means finding an alternative daycare. For kids it means leaving their friends and up to an hour bus ride, almost double what some kids currently deal with.
Carla Crews, a concerned parent of two kids who would be affected by the move, heads a committee appealing to the school board.
“That is far too long for our kids to spend on a school bus, our kindergarten children are going to spend more time on the bus than they will in class,” said Crews.
Johnson told the parents this is a complex set of circumstances and there are 40,000 other CBE kids who currently ride the bus.
“Now I’m involved in it and so I am the one actually who will make the decision,” said Johnson.
