I was on the Delta school district website the other day when I came across a piece on the three new academies that will begin operating this September. The story details the well qualified instructors for each of the offerings as well as the specialized areas of study. If you're a student interested in one of the subject areas, the programs sound pretty darn appealing.
Near the bottom of the piece it mentions how there would soon be 10 academies and how enrollment in these specialty programs continues to rise, standing at 212 students for the current school year.
Maybe it's just me, but that number didn't strike me as a terribly large one given enrollment in the district, even after a decade of decline, is roughly 15,500. That means less than 1.5 per cent of students in the system attend one of these fee-paying ventures.
Academies are relatively new - the first one, hockey, started in 2004 - so they're still growing and tend to receive a disproportionate amount of attention, including from the media, but I couldn't help but pause when I saw that enrollment total. There are a lot of positive attributes to these programs - they provide a choice in curriculum and help the district retain and attract students - but at the end of the day they only serve a small fraction of the population.
By comparison, there are more than 1,700 kids in the district identified with some form of special need, while in excess of 1,500 require additional support because English is a second language. I'm certainly not suggesting these students get ignored because of the academies, but it's become a spring ritual for school trustees to hear from teachers and parents about support being less than adequate for these vulnerable kids.
You could argue that academies attract students - 59 currently come from out-of-district - so they're beneficial because they produce revenue that can be used elsewhere in the system. You could also argue that a lot of time and effort has been expended on these initiatives, including the ones that ceased operating or never made it beyond the drawing board, for a less than overwhelming return.
I can see validity in both schools of thought. I think academies are beneficial in that they offer greater curriculum choices and, at least at the present time, a modest boost to the bottom line.
At the same time, even with three added this September, they'll only serve about two per cent of Delta's student population.
