Dear Editor:
The statement that emerged from last week’s school closure meeting in Osoyoos that the third reading to close the Osoyoos Secondary School is “strictly procedural” is not necessarily a fact.
Are we to believe that the decision to shut down Osoyoos Secondary School was strictly procedural all along and the meetings to assess what the community wanted were nothing but a farce?
I urge current trustees Rob Zandee, Rachel Allenbrand or Sam Hancheroff to have the courage to offer to do the right thing and change their vote.
The board would then have to accept the decision to keep open secondary education in Osoyoos.
The obviously parochial and political motives of their votes contradict their stated objectives that they did it for its educational merit.
Educational merit and the best interests of the students would have left a good-functioning school to remain open to provide secondary education in the community of Osoyoos and would have respected the wishes of the people.
If the over-built high school in Oliver were anywhere near to capacity, there would have been no proposal or vote to destroy the Osoyoos school just to acquire the numbers to fill Oliver.
The board would then have been willing to listen to suggestions for another means to balance the budget and I am confident they would have found the means to do so.
It is not too late for the board to put on hold the destructive decision to close Osoyoos in order to benefit Oliver.
That affects not only education, but also the cooperative relationship needed between the two communities.
Editor’s note: Mr. Brummet was a longstanding educator and political figure in British Columbia. He represented North Peace River from 1979 to 1991 in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia as a Social Credit member.
He was a school principal before entering politics. Brummet served in the provincial cabinet as Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, as Minister of Environment and as Minister of Education)
Tony Brummet
Osoyoos, B.C.
