School board chair and Osoyoos Trustee Marieze Tarr says she hasn’t yet heard anything to convince her that delaying the closure of an Osoyoos school would be beneficial. (Richard McGuire file photo)
School District 53 is under increasing pressure to delay a decision on closing an Osoyoos school, but the board’s chair, Marieze Tarr, is casting doubt on whether a delay will happen.
Last week Brenda Dorosz, chair of the citizens’ group Save Our Schools (SOS), wrote to Tarr and school district administration to request a delay.
This follows a recent letter from Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff asking for a one-year delay to allow a district-wide engagement process to seek a solution to the school district’s financial problems.
“What I would like to see happen is true consultation,” said Dorosz. “I don’t think what they are doing now is effective. I think we need to sit down at the table and thoroughly go through all solutions and recommendations that have been brought forward by different groups in Osoyoos.”
McKortoff said she has recently spoken to MLA Linda Larson and Education Minister Mike Bernier and they both support the idea of getting a committee together to exhaust every option.
“We need to look at this carefully and research what can be done,” McKortoff said in an interview last week. “Absolutely the last option should be closing the school. It would make sense to get a committee of councils, the school board and parents. Not 1,000 people, but a smaller committee to look at every option.”
The school district is conducting a consultation process as it considers either closing Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) and busing all its students to Oliver, or closing Osoyoos Elementary School (OSE) and converting OSS into a Kindergarten to Grade 9 school.
Tarr acknowledged that when the school board votes on April 6, it could decide to close a school, keep them open or to delay a decision until further questions can be answered.
She said, however, that she has not yet heard anything to convince her that a delay would be beneficial.
The Town of Osoyoos, she said, hasn’t come up with any solutions except looking at a four-day school week.
This, she said, is not a good option for elementary school or vulnerable children. The savings, she added, would only be about $200,000.
“The other solution they came up with was to wait more time,” she said. “We have given them more time, in 2010 and 2011 when we were faced with almost the same scenario.”
At that time, she said, former Mayor Stu Wells stated that he would come up with a task force to work collaboratively with the board to come up with solutions around declining enrolments and the school district’s budgetary issues.
“Up to now they have never had a task force,” she said. “We’ve never been contacted.”
Wells, however, disputes this version of events, pointing to his statement as reported in the Feb. 2, 2011 Osoyoos Times: “He (Wells) added that the town will help take on the responsibility of finding solutions to keep OSS open and viable in the long run.”
While Tarr says the onus was on the Town of Osoyoos to come up with a task force, Wells says the word “help” implies the school district would take the lead and the town would assist.
“There was no leadership shown from them,” said Wells. “These are educational issues. We wouldn’t ask them to come in and design a sewer program. I don’t think we ever put the town into that leadership role.”
He acknowledges, however, that once there was no longer “an in-your-face imminent threat,” there’s a natural tendency to move on to other issues.
Wells supports the position of Dorosz and McKortoff to ask for a delay in the decision.
“The delay truly makes some sense here,” he said, adding this would allow time to explore solutions. “And if you strike while the iron is hot, you probably can bring people to the table.”
Wells points to another statement in the 2011 Osoyoos Times article: “Osoyoos trustee Marieze Tarr said the economic impact on the town of Osoyoos would be huge as young families would leave the community if the school closes. Fewer young families in town, she added, will also hurt Osoyoos Elementary School’s enrolment.”
Wells said he assumed this would still be Tarr’s view.
Tarr, however, argued that the responsibility for a task force should have been with Osoyoos.
“You have to realize our mandate is the best quality education for children in our district,” said Tarr. “Our mandate is not attracting families to town, our job is not to create jobs for parents. If we don’t have kids in our schools, we don’t get funding. So that is the challenge we face.”
Tarr said there has been one meeting with Osoyoos council since the decision was made to consider school closures, but it wasn’t productive.
“It was not a co-operative meeting,” she said. “They basically told us all the things that we have done wrong, that we’re facing the deficit due to bad financial management. As soon as we sat down they started fighting with us and blaming us for things that we have done wrong, so there hasn’t been any solution from their side.”
The school district plans to meet again with town council on March 9, a day after the next public consultation meeting takes place at the Sonora Community Centre.
McKortoff said she disagrees with Tarr’s suggestion that solutions haven’t been given to the school district.
“I think there have been a ton of things sent to the school district,” said McKortoff. “We just hope that they are looking through those things carefully to see if there is anything in there that makes sense.”
She said she doesn’t know how the school board will vote on a delay.
“All we can do is provide the questions and make suggestions and hopefully delay this until we can come up with something that makes sense,” said McKortoff, adding that saving $500,000 a year from a $24 million budget should be possible.
She said the idea of a subsidy from the town is still possible, though it doesn’t seem fair that only Osoyoos should provide funding when the declining enrolment problem is district wide.
McKortoff said she is cognizant of the fact that 2017 is a provincial election year and that might make a difference in increasing the province’s education funding.
“I said to the minister (Bernier) the other day that we need to look at a win-win solution here for the school district, for the town and for the provincial government,” she said. “I said next year is an election year. They absolutely know that.”
Dorosz said she has been seeking feedback from parents on the ideas of a four-day school week and of blended classrooms where students of more than one grade attend class together.
The response to both ideas has been positive, she said.
Some parents have expressed concern about blending classes in courses that are on provincial exams, she said.
However, Dorosz said she’s heard there could be an announcement later this month that provincial exams will be ended.
She said a delay in the closure decision to allow a true consultative process with all stakeholders would benefit the entire region.
“I think we can accomplish a lot more,” said Dorosz. “It’s not just saving Osoyoos. Oliver is next, or Keremeos. If this deficit continues, somebody is going to be next.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Sue McKortoff, mayor, Town of Osoyoos, is asking School District 53 to delay its decision on closing an Osoyoos school for a year in order to allow for district-wide consultations aimed at finding a solution. (Richard McGuire file photo)
Brenda Dorosz, chair of Save Our Schools (SOS), is also asking the school district to delay its decision. (Richard McGuire file photo)
Former mayor Stu Wells says the school district failed to show leadership in finding solutions after OSS was given a reprieve in 2011. (Photo supplied)
