Castlegar's turn for school closure meeting; councillor counsels against municipal funding for schools
By Kyra Hoggan
Castlegar’s about to get its turn after a meeting held by School District 20 in Rossland Tuesday night drew 500 residents to discuss the future of Rossland Secondary School. A similar meeting is slated for Castlegar tonight at Twin Rivers Elementary at 6:30 p.m., with one option on the table being the closure of Castlegar Primary School.
Castlegar trustee Jo-Ann Bursey said she hopes for, but is not anticipating, a similar turn-out in Castlegar as was enjoyed in Rossland.
“If we get 100 people tonight, I’ll be happy,” Bursey said, pointing to historically lower turn-outs by Castlegar residents at this sort of event. She stressed, however, the importance of public input in this sort of process.
“We’ll have to cut $1.75 million from our budget over the next three years, and already, 88 per cent of our $36-million annual budget is going to wages – that’s before we’ve bought a single text book, paid the phone bill …”
What those cuts end up looking like, she said, will be significantly altered by the feedback the board gets at meetings like the one tonight, as well as through the SD 20 website.
“Over 200 submissions have been sent in and posted on the SD 20 website, and I’ve read every single one of them, and only a handful come from Castlegar,” she said. “There are a multitude of ways this (budget tightening) could play out – it’s not a forgone conclusion that Castlegar Primary is going to close. It could be a reconfiguration, it could even end up being status quo – There are many different scenarios, and we need to hear from the public to decide.”
Attendees at the meeting will be able to participate in working groups, pose questions, offer suggestions – and Bursey said any question they can’t answer on the spot will be posted – with a complete answer – on the SD 20 website.
She said the City of Rossland went so far as to suggest a possible funding partnership to keep Grades K-12 in Rossland, although what that would ultimately look like is unclear.
“That’s going to be a very interesting piece, how that input plays out and how it impacts other communities,” Bursey said.
Castlegar city councillor Deb McIntosh said she thinks there’s a real danger inherent in this suggestion, as it’s the thin edge of a wedge that forces municipalities to pay for provincial mandates (ones for which the province collects taxes and the cities do not), even potentially opening the door to similar scenarios in other provincial portfolio areas such as health services.
“The City of Rossland has been paying for the playing fields at the school for around 20 years, and they’ve had other lease/rental agreements with the school over the years. I think there becomes an issue of venue options, because it’s such a small community,” she said. “But I do think (partial municipal funding for school districts) is a slippery slope. This certainly would open up a whole can of worms for other places.”
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