Royal City Record May 23 2014

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FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2014

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The merry month of May Cassidy Tecklenborg was crowned New Westminster’s 144th May Queen before a boisterous crowd of students from across the city. The city’s annual May Day ceremonies, held on Wednesday under sunny skies at Queen’s Park Stadium, featured longstanding traditions such as folk dances by Grade 2 students and Maypole dances by Grade 5 students (pictured at left), as well as some new elements including performances by an elementary school choir and the Hyack Cheer Team. For more, including photos and video, see www.royalcityrecord.com. Larry Wright/THE RECORD

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Hume Park school will be shut down BY JENNIFER THUNCHER CONTRIBUTING WRITER editorial@royalcityrecord.com

After five years of uncertainty, Hume Park Elementary school’s fate is finally sealed. The New Westminster board of education voted unanimously Tuesday night to close the school as of July 1. The child-care centre and home learning program will continue to operate. The battle was lost almost before the meeting began, as evidenced by the fact there were only two people in the audience to watch the final vote, held in the New Westminster Secondary School library. District superintendent John Gaiptman

said that all the parents of students in the school’s kindergarten to Grade 5 classes had been spoken to prior to the meeting and most students had been placed for the fall in either F.W. Howay or Richard McBride elementary schools. “There is nothing John Gaiptman more important than superintendent having to close a public school,” said Gaiptman when he addressed the board at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.

“This should be the toughest decision that you make as a board. Public schools are the lifeline of our democratic system, and I think that whenever possible, we need to be out there promoting public schools. Unfortunately, Hume James Janzen Park went down to such a low number of trustee students that we found ourselves in the position of having to recommend to the board that Hume Park be closed.”

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Sixty-two students were enrolled in 2009 when the district first considered closing the school for financial and educational reasons. Since that time the school has been on the chopping block twice more and the enrolment numbers have continued to drop. There are currently 27 students attending the school. As of May 20, only 11 students had registered for the fall, according to Sandra Pace, the district’s director of instruction. Each trustee spoke to the issue prior to the vote, with several expressing reluctant support for the closure. “This is the third time that this has

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