At the school district’s public forum on June 17, school board chair Jamie Brennan insisted nothing has been determined yet and everything is still up in the air. He says trustees are listening.
We hope so because Ladysmith parents have come up with some good ideas for the district.
The format for the public forum seemed to be an interesting one, with smaller discussion groups focused on certain aspects of the proposed plan. But why wasn’t this kind of consultation done before the plan was rolled out?
Parents had a lot of questions and concerns during the meeting, and many of them stemmed from feeling that they didn’t have enough information. Maybe they would be less worried about some of the changes being discussed if the information came first.
What exactly would a “middle school philosophy” for Grade 6-8 students at Ladysmith Secondary School (LSS) look like, for example?
During the public forum, parents came up with their own solutions to some of the issues facing School District 68, such as relocating the Cedar Secondary students to LSS to increase enrolment numbers here. Other ideas that came up included creating a swimming academy at the secondary school because it is right beside the pool — something like that could draw in students from all corners of the district and keep parents from leaving the district.
Many parents have put in a lot of time, thought, effort and research into creating proposals for the school board. It’s great to see people coming together to save their schools and stand up for what they believe.
But I can’t help thinking it would have been nice if they could have shared their ideas before a plan was created and been part of that process instead of being invited to react to the plan.
—Lindsay Chung
