Any parent worried that, by December, they're going to be scrambling around for childcare need not fret.
Richmond School District's superintendent, Monica Pamer, fully recognizes that any move to switch from the traditional school calendar to a balanced "year-round" schedule - which could mean the whole of December on vacation - is a dramatic shift in people's lives. And there's little chance of any sweeping changes this year, or even the next, until everyone in the community is fully consulted and their opinions are heard.
"Any consultation will be quite a process and has to involve, not just parents and teachers, the whole community," said Pamer.
"We're not about to run into a situation like this. We already have a committee that has been exploring this for the last three or four years.
Many people are also questioning if the switch, should it be made, will affect the entire school district. However, both Pamer and school board chair Donna Sargent are steering toward the even bigger picture of a regional calendar shift.
"I have spoken to a lot of the Metro Vancouver school districts and the feeling was that it would have to be all of us or none," said Sargent.
"A lot of our staff live in Vancouver and Delta and have their kids in schools there, so we have to look at the bigger picture.
Richmond already has two schools on a form of balanced calendar - Spul'u'kwuks and Garden City elementaries - which have the same number of days in school as traditional calendar schools, only the vacations differ.
Of the latter, Pamer explained that it was the Garden City school community that approached the district, not the other way around.
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