At the School District 20 Community Focus Group meeting held at RSS on March 3, attendees were put into groups, and were asked to answer three questions relating to the facilities report scenario 17B that they put forward.
Here is the scenario:
SD20 Suggested Facilities Plan
Based on the commonalities found during the scoring and analysis of options (from Planning for the Future: Facilities Report 2010–2015), and on the board’s desire to consider the entire district, the suggested district facilities plan would move the district toward the following school and district configurations by 2015, or earlier as capacity usage and costing allows.
• Configure MacLean Elementary as K – 7
• Maintain J.L. Crowe Secondary as 8 – 12
• Close Rossland Secondary School
• Move Late French Immersion to Robson Community School
• Configure Twin Rivers Elementary as K – 7
• Close and repurpose Castlegar Primary
• Move Online Learning to Castlegar Primary
• Move Blueberry Creek Community School services and programs to Castlegar Primary
• Move District Resource Centre to Castlegar Primary
• Move Itinerant staff to Stanley Humphries Secondary School
• Close Blueberry Creek Community School and Online Learning
• Dispose of, lease, or rent on an operating and capital cost recovery basis Online Learning, Rossland Secondary School and Blueberry Creek Community School
• Move the School Board offices to top floor of Trail Middle School
• Lease and sell when possible the current School Board offices
• Consolidate Operations to Waneta if, and only when, a partner can be found in Castlegar, Blueberry or Genelle for the Castlegar bus yard and wash bays
And here are the questions the board wanted the groups to answer, in relation to the suggested facilities plan above:
Focus Group Discussion & Response Questions
1.(i)Which parts, if any, of the suggested plan on page 12 make sense to you and are acceptable options for consideration?
(ii) Please provide a rationale and preferred timelines for your answer(s) to question 1(i).
(iii) Are there any additional concerns, considerations, or conditions that, if addressed, would increase your acceptance?
2.(i)Please provide your alternative(s) for those parts of the suggested plan on page 12 that are not acceptable to you, and include a rationale and suggested timelines.
(ii)Which options or alternatives do you think would work best for YOUR community? Why? Suggested timeline?
3. Which is more important to you, facilities or educational learning programs? Please provide a rationale.
4. Please share the three most important things that you believe the board needs to consider when making its decisions regarding the facilities plan.
At the meeting, the consensus was that only a couple of the parts of the above plan were acceptable, and that we couldn’t make decisions on what’s best for other communities.
Rosslanders were very united and clear in their desire — turn RSS into a K-12 school and MacLean into a Neighbourhoods of Learning/community centre, so that we can have long-term K-12 educational stability in our community.
The board has stated that they will also accept individual submissions of answers to the questions, which are due by the end of March.
You can download a Word document with the questions on it, that you can fill in and email to dnicoletti@sd20.bc or if you prefer, email me at sackerman@telus.net and I’ll send it to you.
Alternatively, you can fill out the same questions on the sheets handed out at the meeting and either drop it off at the school board office in downtown Trail, or fax it to 250-364-2470.