To the Editor,
Re: Choice for students simply doesn’t exist, Letters, June 23.
Kip Wood’s response to trustees’ efforts to meet the needs of all students is bang on and way off as well.
There is no way for trustees not to legitimize the under-funding of public education. Pretending that more money will come from the Ministry of Education if we just carry on by not offering a full complement of courses needed to graduate in every school.
The province has removed most choices from students and parents already, and Premier Christy Clark can only be expected to make things worse in an effort to promote a continuing move to private and home-schooling.
No new money is coming to this board.
As long as we have schools at less than capacity, we will have no choice but to make cuts. Refusing to close schools for the sake of being right is not helping anyone except Clark and her cronies.
We must work within the rules we have to ensure the choices are indeed available to every student in the district.
Specialty schools that could require a student to travel from as far as Ladysmith to attend Dover Bay Secondary School because that is the only place that offers a specific course is even less acceptable.
It seems incredible that anyone wanting better services to teachers and students would support keeping all schools open regardless of their safety and condition to make a point.
The fight against the province, which I fully support, must be fought by our MLAs in Victoria, and by us on the lawns of the Legislature, not in the classroom or the boardroom.
Let’s try working with what we have to make unpleasant choices that hurt less rather than decisions that completely cripple what we still have.
Bill Bard
Nanaimo
