The provincial government has thrown the school closure issue back at trustees of School District 53 with last Wednesday’s announcement of a Rural Education Enhancement Fund.
The fund will offset any savings that school districts might gain by closing qualifying rural schools.
It’s very obvious that this fund is aimed directly at addressing the political crisis that has been unleashed by SD 53’s plans to close Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS).
OSS is one of nine B.C. schools listed as qualifying for the fund. It is the only high school on the list – the other rural schools are all elementary.
Premier Christy Clark appeared to underline the importance of Osoyoos in her statement about the fund.
“Closing the only high school or elementary school in a rural community has a large impact on the local economy,” Clark said in the government news release.
Clark has also appointed MLA Linda Larson as the parliamentary secretary for rural education.
Whatever local people may think of Linda Larson and her previous response to this issue, her appointment appears to be a strong signal from the premier that the government wants SD 53 to resolve this matter and keep it from damaging the B.C. Liberal government going into an election year.
The school trustees will be considering their response at this Wednesday’s regular board meeting.
No doubt some of them will want OSS to close regardless of the new money, because they see closure as necessary to resolve the problem of the underutilization of the overbuilt Southern Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver.
Some trustees may genuinely believe that Osoyoos students will be better off being bused to a larger school in Oliver – believing they know better than the parents and students who strongly tell them otherwise.
But if the board refuses to take the money and stubbornly persists with closing OSS, there will be hell to pay – both from the people of the Osoyoos community and quite possibly from the provincial government itself.
Every time this community has responded to this board’s concerns – whether by offering generous funding or providing new flexible timetables – the school board has come up with new pretexts and excuses for closing OSS.
The excuses have now run out and the board must now take the money, reverse its position and keep OSS open. To do otherwise will be to provoke a major showdown.
Perhaps it’s coincidental, but last Wednesday the provincial government also fired the entire North Okanagan Shuswap school board and appointed a trustee to replace them.
The reason was that the board had lost the confidence of the public due to its mismanagement.
Coincidental or not, this should send a clear signal to the board of SD 53 that should they decide to turn down the province’s money and close OSS anyway, the next step by the Osoyoos community could well be to also seek this school board’s dismissal.
We hope this won’t be necessary.
