By ROY WOOD

Add March 15 to the list of key dates in the unfolding of the future of public education in Osoyoos.

That’s the day the Ministry of Education plans to announce the funding for B.C. schools for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The contents of that budget could have an effect on what happens to the town’s schools.

It’s one week after the March 8 second and final community consultation meeting at the Sonora Centre in Osoyoos. And it’s three weeks before the April 6 special school board meeting at the local high school where trustees will decide how to proceed.

In the face of declining enrollments and a growing budget deficit, school district administration has proposed two options, each of which would save about $400,000 per year:

•Close Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) and bus students to Southern Okanagan Secondary School in Oliver; or

•Close Osoyoos Elementary and change OSS to a kindergarten-to-grade-9 school and bus the grade 10-12s to Oliver.

School trustees could choose either option or it could choose do neither at this time. Advocates in the community have been urging the board to at least wait a year so that alternative ways to reduce costs can be explored.

“If on March 15 we all of a sudden get a lot more money than we bargained for, we could decide to postpone the decision for a year,” board chair Marieze Tarr said in an interview Wednesday.

Since the first community consultation meeting earlier this month, the board has been receiving input from many sources, said Tarr. “We are getting the message loud and clear that they want the schools to open at all costs.
“I’m also getting the message (from some parents) that ‘if it’s going to save my kid’s quality of education, then a 20-minute bus ride is not that bad,’ That voice is not as loud as the other voices, but it certainly is there,” she said.