Dear Editor:
This is an open letter to School District 53 board chair Mariez Tarr, Vice Chair Sam Hancheroff and trustees June Harrington, Myrna Coates, Debbie Marten, Rachel Allenbrand and Rob Zandee.
We are extremely disappointed in your complete disregard to the wishes of our community of Osoyoos; the parents of the school children in Osoyoos and the school children in Osoyoos.
So many solutions have been provided to you to resolve the temporary funding shortage for our school, yet you have dismissed them out of hand.
Apparently, your only solution to any problem is to close our school.
Do you have any idea the number of problems you are creating by your supposed solution to a temporary problem?
First of all, you are wasting a lot of valuable time in our children’s lives as they would be riding the bus back and forth to Oliver twice a day, when it is completely unnecessary. Secondly, if the school does close, you would deny them normal after school activities that are a good part of school life.
Thirdly, you would be exposing them to being interlopers on the school owned by the students in Oliver.
This is a fact – not a fantasy and it got pretty ugly at times when my two oldest daughters were attending high school in Oliver.
We have been through this situation before, and believe me, it is not a healthy one. Why do you think we fought so hard to get our present school here in Osoyoos? If it had been a good situation, we wouldn’t have had to change things.
The Osoyoos community has offered all kinds of useful solutions to keep our school open and effective.
What is the problem in keeping our school open in Osoyoos if that is what the people of Osoyoos want?
It is not money, as a lot of solutions have been presented to resolve that issue.
It is not quality of education, as our students have not suffered any losses by attending school in Osoyoos. Believe me, the gains far outweigh the losses in having our school remain open in Osoyoos.
And I do know what I am talking about as my family had children attend school here.
The two oldest had to go to Oliver to attend high school, but the youngest was able to graduate in Osoyoos Two of our three children went on to university in Vancouver, one from our Osoyoos and one from the high school in Oliver. Both of them graduated with Bachelor of Commerce degrees,
That’s a pretty good testimonial for both schools, but it also proves that having a smaller high school in Osoyoos will not be a detriment to our students.
It will be an absolute plus.
We take it as an insult to our intelligence as a community, that we don’t know what is best for our students in their academic and social needs.
We will do all that is necessary to ensure that our school fulfills the needs of all our students and does not put them at a disadvantage to any students in our district or our province.
If any of the trustees cannot see the advantages to having our school in Osoyoos, they are in the wrong position.
When a community is so supportive of its schools, the trustees should jump up and cheer, not kick the community in the teeth.
Walter and Virginia Cook
Osoyoos, B.C.
Editor’s note: Virginia Cook was a longtime trustee with the former School District 14, which managed schools in Osoyoos, Oliver and Okanagan Falls back in the 1970s and she played an integral role in ensuring Osoyoos Secondary School was built back in 1979.
