Students walk between classes at Osoyoos Secondary School in this file photo. Parent groups and town council hope for a large turnout at a consultation meeting about closing the school. The meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. in the OSS gymnasium. (Richard McGuire file photo)
Parents and others opposed to closing Osoyoos schools hope to pack the gymnasium at Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) when School District 53 holds the first public “consultation meeting” on the proposed closures.
That meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at OSS.
“We need thousands,” said Brenda Dorosz, chair of the Save Our Schools (SOS) committee, in a post on Facebook. “This means come early!”
In another post she wrote: “It would be fantastic to have 3,000+ community members attend.”
The OSS gym holds fewer than 1,000 people, even if people are allowed to stand and exceed the room’s legal capacity.
As of Monday, more than 1,100 local residents had signed an online petition on Change.org objecting to the school district’s proposal to close OSS or Osoyoos Elementary School (OSE) to deal with a funding shortfall.
As well, paper copies of the petition are available for customers to sign at most local businesses, including the Osoyoos Times.
Dorosz said last week that a Punjabi-language petition is also being circulated in the local Indo-Canadian community.
A poster is also being circulated through students and being posted around Osoyoos giving details on the consultation meeting and encouraging people to attend, Dorosz said.
The School District is also holding two earlier consultation meetings on Feb. 9, both at OSS. The first meeting at 3 p.m. is with Osoyoos-based education staff. The second at 4:30 p.m. is with Town of Osoyoos council.
A second public consultation meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8 at OSE. The school district will report on feedback and do further consultation.
Dorosz said she hopes that students involved with after-school activities such as dance, hockey and martial arts will be able to attend the OSS meeting in their uniforms to underline how their activities will be impacted if they have to take a bus to and from Oliver.
Presidents of the parent advisory councils (PACs) at both schools say they are encouraging parents to attend the consultation meeting.
Both PACs met last week and then they also met together and are working closely with Dorosz and her SOS group.
“We wanted to make sure that all the parents knew they needed to come out on the 9th,” said Amy Robinson, president of the PAC at OSE. “That if they have concerns, questions or suggestions, that they need to voice them … I’m hoping lots and lots of parents come out.”
Michelle Nehring, president of the PAC at OSS, said she is also encouraging parents to attend.
Nehring said her attendance at the meeting with the OSE PAC made her aware that some parents will have a harder time if their different children attend different schools or daycare.
Some parents, she said, have a child in daycare and another at OSE. Currently it works well because the two locations are so close to each other.
If OSE were closed, elementary school students would be moved to OSS instead, which is further away from the daycare.
Even more disruptive, she said, would be cases where one child attends school in Osoyoos and the other has to go to Oliver.
Nehring also pointed to the difficulty high school students doing work experience at businesses in Osoyoos will face if they have to go to school in Oliver.
Work experience takes place during the school day she said, adding that after-school jobs at Osoyoos businesses will also be impacted.
Nehring also expressed a willingness to meet with parents who have concerns prior to the consultation meeting.
She said she would be speaking at the consultation meeting on behalf of the OSS PAC.
“I will be letting them know that we should have high schools and elementary schools in both our towns,” she said, referring to Osoyoos and Oliver. “The very best solution and the very least disruptive is to close Tuc-el-Nuit.”
Robinson, however, said she would not be advocating closing other schools.
“I’m not throwing any other school under the bus, because I know I wouldn’t want that,” she said, expressing empathy for people in other communities. “I know how it’s affecting me. I’m just hoping that we can come up with a solution and move forward with it.”
Robinson said she’s saddened that the school board put the entire burden of the deficit on Osoyoos, but she’s concerned that in coming years the situation will get worse and other schools will also be threatened with closures.
“We won’t be the last,” she said. “I would hope that other towns in our district are looking at this too. If they want to come out (on Feb. 9) and have a voice too, I think that would be fantastic.”
Town of Osoyoos council is also urging people to attend the Feb. 9 meeting.
On Monday, council passed a motion on the school issue during its in-camera meeting, which was then brought forward to the regular meeting.
The motion calls for council to lobby the provincial government to find a solution other than closing one of the schools and calls for council to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Education Minister Mike Bernier.
It also calls on council to lobby other municipalities to seek interest in providing municipal funding and for council to work with local parent groups to seek alternative solutions.
Administration has been directed to write to the school district expressing concerns about the short notice of the impending school closure.
Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff said she hopes a good variety of voices are heard from at the consultation meeting, including students.
She also hopes that people will bring forward thoughtful and sensible solutions.
She’s frustrated by people who say money should be spent on schools instead of the fire hall, not understanding that there is no connection between two, and she hopes people don’t come to the meeting to make those kinds of arguments that won’t solve the issue.
“There might be some things that we could do that would at least give us some breathing room to continue looking at solutions,” McKortoff said. “I don’t know whether to be optimistic or not, but I think when you get a bunch of people together who are really strong willed and have some really good ideas that good things happen.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
