Robin Stille delivered a strong, detailed and well-researched challenge to school district figures and pointed to areas where the school budget could be cut without closing schools. (Richard McGuire photo)
Osoyoos resident Robin Stille, a former teacher, has sent a detailed 12-page letter and comments to school trustees challenging many numbers used by School District 53 to justify closing an Osoyoos school.
The document expands on points made by Stille at the school district’s Feb. 9 community consultation meeting about the possible closure of Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) or Osoyoos Elementary School (OSE).
Stille has requested a written response from trustees to a number of blunt questions about School District expenses.
“As a community member, I am deeply concerned about the potential school closure in Osoyoos,” Stille wrote. “I fear there is inaccuracy in the information being presented to the public and to school trustees.”
Among key points Stille raises are:
- The school district, by starting the consultation process without any prior warning, “has sucker-punched an entire community;
- The proposed closure of OSE is ludicrous and the recommendation is only made to make the closure of OSS more palatable;
- In its estimate of cost savings by closing OSS, the school district has not taken into account the funding impact of students leaving the area as a result;
- There are still 15 principals and vice-principals in the district, which is unchanged since 2005, even though enrolment has declined by 23 per cent;
- YouLearn has both a principal and vice-principal despite enrolment declines that have left it with less than 60 full-time-equivalent students;
- When the district eliminated the assistant superintendent position after the retirement of Jim Insley, any savings were lost because the district implemented a Network Leaders Program at a cost of about $235,000 a year;
- There have not been any administrative savings when the costs of salaries, benefits and supplies and services are considered. Supplies and service costs have increased by 46 per cent since 2010;
- The board listed a $271,000 sawdust collection system for OSS as its fourth highest capital priority and approved it at the same meeting where it called the special meeting to look at closing OSS;
- The board has recently “identified” $4.77 million required in capital upgrades at OSS, yet these don’t appear in the five-year capital plan approved in October;
- There are errors in the district’s facilities plan, including discrepancies in the claim that the district would lose $500,000 in geographic grants by amalgamating Cawston Primary School and Similkameen Elementary Secondary School in Keremeos;
- Discrepancies over the capacity of Southern Okanagan Secondary School (SOSS) in Oliver raise the question of whether there was an understanding with the Ministry of Education that SOSS would get extra capacity in exchange for closing OSS;
- Projected savings of $387,000 by closing OSS are inaccurate, suggesting the board may be planning to achieve savings by laying off teachers, despite statements otherwise;
- The district has not taken into account such costs as bus fuel and maintenance, renovations to SOSS and additional operating costs at SOSS.
“The board office is choosing numbers to support their recommendation to close the school,” Stille said in an interview last week. “They numbers they’ve chosen cannot really be validated.”
Stille said she was suspicious of the numbers provided by the school district, so decided to do her own fact checking.
She joked that she inherited this skill from her accountant father.
“I’m one of those people who, if given a financial statement, I’m going to read it over,” she said. “I look at the numbers that are presented. I’m like a dog with a bone.”
See the full text of Robin Stille’s letter and comments.
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
