No one consulted about closing Sundance

Re: “School board votes to close Sundance,” March 29.

School District 61’s board voted five to four in favour of closing Sundance Elementary, with the option for families to move to Lake Hill.

Trustees said that for six years, behind the scenes, they have managed to save Sundance and many other programs, but they are now out of options. Yet we didn’t hear about this until late January.

We could have had six years to find other workable options. We had many ideas for saving the school and addressing budget needs, but no time to proceed. No one was consulted about this forced move to Lake Hill — not Sundance, not Lake Hill and not the wider community.

Too few Sundance families can move. The only option is for both the school and the program to close. Though the motion was masked as a “program relocation,” this was really a rushed and thinly veiled school closure.

No amount of collaboration would eliminate all of the stresses on our public schools, but surely we could have found solutions to some. What community links could we create? What programs could we offer? What would draw families back from the private system? We’ll never know.

From this process, we learned that the SD61 board is reactive, not proactive. No real problems have been solved. We just have one less school, and one less choice for children in our district.

Families at smaller schools, take heed. Sundance won’t be the last to close. And you won’t know it’s coming until it’s too late. Sharilynn Wardrop Victoria