QUALICUM SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS NOT PROVIDED
"FUTURE ENROLMENT GROWTH IN THE DISTRICT OF PERSONS OF SCHOOL AGE, PERSONS OF LESS THAN SCHOOL AGE AND ADULTS"
by William Warren Munroe, March 17, 2014

When schools are recommended for closure, a public consultation is required to ensure "a fair consideration of the community’s input and adequate opportunity for the community to respond to a board’s proposal to close the school permanently", as well as to ensure fair consideration of "future enrolment growth in the district of persons of school age, persons of less than school age and adults".1

Since the Qualicum School District (QSD) facility review has not taken into consideration the "future enrolment growth in the district of persons of school age, persons of less than school age and adults" but has only provided a new (lower) forecast of enrolment without providing the assumptions, this facility review can reasonably be considered to be flawed and lack integrity (to be complete, undivided).

Following is an excerpt from an Open letter to Qualicum School District 69 Board of Trustees and Superintendent, March 12, 2014:

"Without being informed about the "future enrolment growth in the district of persons of school age, persons of less than school age and adults", new or expanded schools may be approved just when the enrolment is going down, or on the other hand schools may be closed when enrolment is starting to go up again. Recall in 2010, just seven years after opening a $10,000,000 expansion, the $10,000,000 expansion and the rest of the same school were recommended for permanent closure in the QSD.
As mentioned, methods and input data must accompany findings, not only to ensure that the methods and data provided are correct, but to allow for a better understanding of what the "findings" mean. Forecast numbers without verification or validation are unfounded numbers.
As a professional Population Analyst and Applied Demographer, Member of the Canadian Population Society, and having served as the Population Analyst for BC Stats, I continue to advocate verification of the methods and data used. May I recommend, the Board of Education include a school district level consideration of future enrolment growth in the district of persons of school age, persons of less than school age and adults using Statistics Canada’s Census of Population and the cohort change ratios method. This is the most reliable and cost effective method and data with which to gain insight into the fluctuating age distribution based on current trends in the QSD."2

Forecasting [without well defined scenarios] pretends to foretell the future" (Former Statistics Canada Chief Statistician Ivan Fellegi, 1999).3

To create open, transparent projection scenarios public consultation participants, including Board of Education members, should use the Population Projection Project.

Endnotes and Sources:

1 Qualicum School District "Facility Review Process" November 2013 (at www.sd69.bc.ca/Publications/Facility%20Review%202013%20-%20Finance%20and%20Facility%20Planning/13.11.26%20Facilities%20Review%20Presentation.pdf) provides forecast numbers but does not cite the method.

See SCHOOL OPENING AND CLOSURE ORDER, BC Ministry of Education, Governance and Legislation Branch E-95 October 15, 2009, Authority: School Act, section 73 and 168 (2)(p)

Also see "Public Consultation, authorized by the School Act, must address ...."

2 Read the Open letter to Qualicum School District 69 Board of Trustees and Superintendent, March 12, 2014

3 Analytic Activities At Statistics Canada, Ivan Fellegi, former Chief Statistician, Statistics Canada, Conference Of European Statisticians, June 1999

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