A large group of parents and community members took a bus to Williams Lake to attend the March 29 School District #27 school board meeting in an attempt to persuade school trustees to defer a decision on the potential closure of Bridge Lake Elementary School (BLES) in June.
They decided to go to the board meeting following March 2 public meeting at BLES where people were grumbling about the lack of time and opportunity to speak directly to the school trustees.
However, they were told there were a few options they could offer input.
SD27 superintendent Mark Thiessen noted folks could provide input for the trustees through e-mails, phone calls, letters or by attending a school board meeting.
When one audience member said the public wasn’t allowed to address the school board or the issues of the day.
However, the superintendent said that policy had changed and people are allowed to speak at the meetings and, in fact, 30 minutes is set aside for just that purpose.
People need to register as a delegation, he explained.
The BLES Parents Advisory Committee (PAC) members decided they would take Thiessen up on his invitation and sent a notice of delegation for the March 29 meeting.
The PAC’s delegation notice asked the school trustees to forego making a decision on the announced closure or non-closure of BLES, so the decision can be deferred for one year.
“[This would allow] the required process of due diligence, proper inquiry as to the relevant facts, full public consultation and fair hearings to be conducted, and related management issues to be dealt with, during that period prior to any decision being made such that the appearance and fact of fair public consultation, good faith, and proper administrative process can be achieved, which is currently not the case.”
However, the PAC members were informed they couldn’t be on the agenda as a delegation because the potential school closure was already on the agenda for that meeting.
That meant they would only be allowed to talk at the end of the school board meeting if there was time in the 30-minute window, and they would only be given five minutes to speak.
When they got to the end of the meeting, BLES PAC president Piri de Vries asked the school trustees to defer the decision on the closure of BLES scheduled to be made at the April 26 meeting.
They refused to do that, she added
“Unfortunately, the trustees not only refused to defer the closure decision, but they also refused to exercise any discretion in allowing the PAC to fully present a new, but related, issue to the board concerning a lack of fair and required consultation with stakeholders in the closure issue.”
de Vries said they were limited to five-minute presentations by several individuals only. The trustees would not permit the full presentation to be made by one PAC representative as requested, she added.
“In our view, this is another failure of the board to address the issue fairly.
“It appears we are left with no alternative but to file a formal appeal.
“We made it very clear that we only made a request for a deferral of the closure decision to allow for a proper consultation process, and after that has taken place, we would respect the boards decision.”
