'I want my kids to walk to school': Parents protest school board lottery change

Residents living near theLangevin Science School said they weren't consulted when the Calgary Board of Education eliminated priority placement forBridgelandand Riverside families earlier this year.

Some parents and residentsprotested the move on Tuesday.

"I went to the open house parent meeting last January and there was no mention of this at all," saidMarkGullacher,resident.

"About a month after that, they silently announced this new system."

He saidparents should have been toldabout the lottery change.

"I want my kids to walk to school," he said.

"We moved to this neighborhood five years ago with the intention of going to thisschool. We have designed awalkablelifestyle and we don't have a car."

Gullachersaidhe won't find out until next February if his child, who is too young to be enrolled in the school system, can attendLangevinElementary.

"I'm frustrated and I was led down the garden path," he says. "My big beef is that they should have announced it at the open house."

The Calgary Board of Education saidLangevinSchool community was one of three schools informed that their lottery would be discontinued in order to be morealigned with the system-wide process.

"While this change can be difficult for the communities closest to the school, it helps to ensure fair and equitable access to the science program to students in other communities from a wider geographic area," they said in an emailed statement.

Before this change, all students living in the communities of Riverside and Bridgeland were given first priority into theprogram, according to a Calgary Board of Education report obtained byCBCNews.

The report says first priority will now begiven tostudents that both residewithin the walk zone and have a sibling in the same program.

"A standardized lottery process exists to ensure students wishing to attend alternative programs across the city where space may be limited have equitable access to the programs," said the report.

StephanieFelker, another parent protesting the school boards decision, says the parents of the communities want the board to reverse the changes to priority as well as reduce the walk zone.

"We actually have heard from residents that they have friends who are choosing not to buy in the neighborhood because there's no school that they can walk their children to and others that will sell and move out of the neighborhood if they don't have access to a school," Felker said.

"We've been trying to get a strongwalkablecommunity for two decades now and this is something that's going to negatively impact that."