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Seniors deal with the dread of the inevitable shift to the passenger seat Page A16
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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A brick and a prayer A worker, safely tethered in, performs some maintenance work on a brick chimney on St. Andrews Cathedral on Blanshard Street. As spring weather hit its stride, maintance and renovation work delayed over the winter is now being resurrected throughout Greater Victoria. Don Denton/News staff
District decides fate of Sundance on Thursday Daniel Palmer News staff
Sundance elementary students and their parents will learn the fate of the alternative school tomorrow (March 27). The school, located at 1625 Bank St. near Royal Jubilee Hospital, is being considered for closure as
the Greater Victoria School District grapples with budgetary restrictions. “We’ll be dealing with whether the board wishes to relocate the current program from Sundance to Lakehill elementary,” said Peg Orcherton, school district board chair. The closure would save $315,000 annually and affect
58 students from kindergarten to Grade 5. The school’s unique programming focus on creative learning, the arts and environmental and social responsibility would move to Lakehill elementary in Saanich, nearly an hour by bus from the Jubilee neighbourhood. “We really understand the school district’s hands
are tied with limited funding from the government, but we’re looking at creative ways to keep this going … and also help to balance the school district’s budget,” said Kira Antinuk, who has two children enrolled at Sundance. Antinuk said the school district will only transfer the alternative learning pro-
gram to Lakehill if 40 of Sundance’s students agree to attend next fall. “The majority of families walk or bike to school, so it’s just not feasible for them to send their children out there when they don’t have a car,” she said. “We’ve had only five students who said they could attend Lakehill if that was the only alterna-
tive.” Sundance elementary supporters and members of the South Jubilee Neighbourhood Association will make their case against closing the school at a board meeting tomorrow. The meeting takes place at 556 Boleskine Rd. and begins at 6:30 p.m. dpalmer@vicnews.com
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