EVERY morning Jo Amott drives to work she passes the school bus on its way to Hamilton and with a wave to the driver and the momentary turbulence of its wake, is somberly reminded of the departure of some students from her school in Balmoral.

As principal of the Balmoral K-12 Community College, she has seen enrolment numbers go down, a trend that began some years before she arrived but nevertheless she had hoped to stop.