Provincial funding offers lifeline for rural schools
$2.7m earmarked for institutions slated to close outside Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna
Nine rural schools slated to close next year have been tossed a lifeline with new provincial government funding announced Wednesday.
Premier Christy Clark announced districts outside of Greater Victoria, Metro Vancouver and Kelowna will be able to apply for ongoing funds to keep those schools open. Some districts will be eligible for amounts equal to what they would save by closing them.
The ministry estimates this will cost about $2.7 million this year and Education Minister Mike Bernier said the funding doesn’t come from existing budgets.
School districts have to apply for the funding each year.
Clark made the announcement during a speech in Quesnel, where Liberal MLAs have gathered for a caucus retreat and where the local school district is slated to close two elementary schools.
Clark promised the audience the money would save the two Quesnel-area schools in Kersley and 10 Mile Lake if local trustees apply.
Clark appointed backbench Boundary-Similkameen MLA Linda Larson as a new parliamentary secretary for rural education. Larson has been facing criticism as the MLA for Osoyoos, where the school district is slated to close the town’s only high school, which is now eligible for the new funding.
However, Brenda Dorosz, who has been leading the fight against the Osoyoos Secondary School closure, remains skeptical.
“I don’t know if this will save our school. I’m a bit hesitant to jump to conclusions,” Dorosz said. “We will have to wait and see. But if this is truly funding that will save our school, it’s fantastic news. I’ve been fighting for this since January.”
School trustees in Okanagan-Similkameen, which includes Osoyoos, were not available for comment by deadline. One school in each of the following communities is also eligible for the funding: Summerland, Yahk, Winlaw, Lake Kathlyn, Duncan Bay and Oyster River.
About 50 schools in the province are at risk of closure, including about five in Richmond and up to 20 in Vancouver that are not eligible for this funding.
In order to apply, schools must be in communities with populations less than 15,000, must be the only school offering certain grades within the community and the funding must be used for the school to stay open. Schools with extreme enrolment decline or poor facility conditions will not be eligible.
“We stepped in and developed these criteria because I wanted to make sure these schools were saved,” said Clark.
“And so we had to act quickly. There’s more work that needs to be done, though, and they’ll do that over the next year.”
Larson’s new junior cabinet position is an acknowledgment from Clark and Bernier the current per-pupil funding formula fails to recognize the unique importance of schools in rural and remote communities.
“For schools in small communities, it’s a special problem,” said Clark. “I know that when a community loses its only school, that community begins to feel itself withering away. The school, the post office, the general store, each one of these really matters and I don’t think anything matters more than a school in a community. It’s been a real problem, school closures.”