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South Okanagan Photos

Falling school enrollment – facilities report needs to be upgraded

credit bctf
credit bctf

School enrollment continues to fall – but there is hope it seems locally.

This story is a tale of two school districts – a story out of Penticton and a comparison to Okanagan Similkameen SD #53.

Recent story out of Okanagan Skaha (SD #67) – they have 1900 empty spaces in all 18 schools rising to 1983 spaces by 2019. Five of these schools have 40 percent of space empty.

I do not have a current comparative study locally but can state – the last report indicates another loss of about 45 students in Okanagan Similkameen. (September – 2014 to 2015)

Oliver Elementary is up

Osoyoos Elementary is up

Cawston Primary, Tuc-el-nuit, Keremeos and Okanagan Falls Elementary are down

Three high schools are down. Eight buildings in total with classroom space. All YouLearn Centres are now in-house and not on the street.

Where are we going with this: Okanagan Skaha has just completed a facilities report and is now engaging the public in a discussion about possible future closures. That board faces a million dollar funding cut.

credit BC Government
credit BC Government

Okanagan Similkameen had a completed facilities report in 2010 by Matrix Planning. It had recommended that trustees look at the closure of the Osoyoos High School and Tuc-el-nuit Elementary. That never happened. The public revolted and that idea was squashed.

Since then – enrollment falls and the Education Ministry continues to ask for cuts. The local school board has a surplus and is padded from hard landings but that resource will dry up fairly soon.

We talked this week to Superintendent Bev Young. Young says a review of the facilities report is probably overdue but trustees have not put it on the agenda yet. That review likely would be internal. Young was quick to talk about the previous year surpluses. She said those funds are in trust, cannot be used for operations, only on one-time capital purchases or large fixes – so the board is always looking at ways of cutting costs system wide.

The hope is that enrollment stats flatten out and growth begins in the next 5 to 10 years. This school district has also been a leader in filling space with community resources like the HUB, daycare and kindergarten services.