School District 27 senior management’s recent push to get rid of fall break is supported by weak and laughable reasons. Space only permits me to address two of them.
First, to claim that parents are suffering undue financial hardship because their children are out of school for four days (the fifth is Remembrance Day statutory holiday) is weak. The break is four days, it does not come as a surprise and many families plan for and use this time to spend with their children.
How about addressing the undue educational hardships the children in the district face when they are instructed by a warm bodied, untrained and uncertified adult because this district is too tight-fisted with money to hire certified educational staff?
Second, to state that when not in classrooms the children of the Cariboo Chilcotin school district are likely running amok in the streets getting lured into nefarious criminal activities is nothing more than unsubstantiated, fear mongering nonsense.
Read More: School District 27 trustees approve draft calendar for public feedback
How about this? Children are more likely to contract deadly, infectious diseases in the close quarters of the school environment and therefore some intermittent time away and apart is good for their life expectancy.
So if you have found yourselves with some extra money Mr. van der Mark why not spend it where it’s actually needed – on trained educational staff to adequately teach the students or on more custodial staff to clean the bacteria-ridden Petri dishes the children now spend their days in? Your present suggestion and reasoning misses the mark completely.
Joan McKinney
Williams Lake
