Mayor Sue McKortoff. (Richard McGuire file photo)
The Town of Osoyoos is prepared to provide School District 53 with an annual grant of $352,000 to keep Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) open.
This information came in a letter sent Tuesday from Mayor Sue McKortoff to Marieze Tarr, chair of the school board. That letter was made public Wednesday.
McKortoff said the grant would require elector assent – likely meaning a referendum – or a municipal budgeting process. It would also come from Area A in the Regional District of Okanagan-Simikameen (RDOS).
McKortoff noted that in her last letter to the board, in which the town offered to provide funding to keep the school open, no amounts of funding were specified “due to the short timeframe associated with this challenge.”
The school board voted 4-3 to close OSS at a special meeting on April 6, but because there wasn’t unanimous consent, it could not give all three readings to the closure bylaw. Third reading is scheduled for the board’s regular meeting on April 27.
McKortoff said the town is also offering operational services such as grass mowing and snow removal at OSS to a maximum of $15,000 in machine and manpower services.
“This is a regional problem that needs the board to provide leadership and pull together the elected leadership of the entire SD 53 to work toward a shared positive solution,” McKortoff wrote. “By all appearances, the board’s solution for declining student enrolment will be to continue to ‘pick off the low-hanging fruit’ and continue to close schools. The ultimate result will be the demise of the entire SD 53.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
