Alberta school with only 4 students saved from closure

Parents in an Alberta hamlet have won a fight to keep their small school open, despite only having four kids enrolled.

Residents of New Brigdenraised $72,000 to keep classrooms open at their school, avoiding sending their kids on a long bus ride to Oyen, a community 40 kilometres south.

"We basically went to the people in the community and said, 'Guys, this is what is going on. We need some help,'" parent Savanna Tye told the Calgary Eyeopener.

"People just really stepped up. They know the heart of the community is that school and they weren't willing to let go."

Parent volunteers

As part of the deal, parents will do maintenance on the small school, including keeping the grass mowed and removing the snow, to save money.

"We're all farmers. We all have tractors, we all have mowers. We have the equipment we need," she said.

The small school has four classrooms, a gym and a library.

Budget projections show that the Prairie Rose School Division will actually see a surplus over the next two years by keeping the school open, she said. It will offerGrades 1 to 4 next fall, as well as a privately-run kindergarten.

More students on the way

While there's only four students this year, there's enough pre-school children in the community that parents expect to have about 24 children enrolled by 2020.

Tye has three young children who will eventually be attending the school.

"We built our life five kilometres down the road from that school. My husband's family has been there for five generations and to have our kids go there as well it's huge," she said.

"It's nice and close and all of us parents get along so good that if something ever happened you have full confidence that any one of the parents in the school with you could walk in and take your kids and be OK."

New Brigden is east of Hanna, near the Saskatchewan border.

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With files from The Calgary Eyeopener