THURSDAY MAY 1, 2014
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YOUTH WEEK ACTIVITIES See what’s planned here to celebrate our region’s youth
A5
FIRE AND ICE THIS SATURDAY
Qualicum Beach festival features food, fun and ice art — see our pullout section
INSIDE
MORE THAN 200 PEOPLE PACK MEETING
Doors close on 4 schools Effective this fall, district adopts model eliminating middle schools AUREN RUVINSKY writer@pqbnews.com
An overflow crowd attended Tuesday’s school board meeting in Parksville to hear four elementary schools will be closed and the middle school model dropped. “The fact is we have 2,000 seats we don’t need, we won’t need for the foreseeable future” said board chair Lynette Kershaw. “We don’t have the money to sustain what we want to do for children — every dollar that we don’t save, we have to cut from in front of children.” Starting with the decade-long history of the process, superintendent Rollie Koop explained the demographic writing has been on the wall and declining enrolment has led inevitably to the closures of the follwing elementary schools: Parksville, Qualicum Beach, Winchelsea We have done everything and French Creek. that’s been asked of us by Required to submit balanced the trustees budgets to the provincial governANNE SKIPSEY ment, staff projects the closures will save the district $1.1 million a year on their increasing operating deficit, plus several million in deferred maintenance, with $450,000 in onetime moving and renovating costs. The Board of Education of School District 69 (Qualicum) voted unanimously Tuesday to reconfigure the district to a Kindergarten to Grade 7 and Grade 8-12 model, then addressed motions closing the four schools individually and consolidating each with the school where students will be sent. French Creek elementary students, for example, will now be in the Errington Elementary catchment area. Current Parksville Elementary students will be sent to two different schools, with English students going to Springwood Middle School and French Immersion students going to Oceanside Middle School where dual track immersion will continue. Short public comment sections opened each set of recommendations, with people taking to the mic to call on the board to defer specific decisions for a year. See CLOSURE PROCESS ’EXCRUCIATING’, page A9
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JOHN HARDING PHOTO
This youngster was one of many Qualicum Beach residents who packed a school board meeting Tuesday night where trustees, faced with a huge budget deficit, closed four elementary schools in the district.
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