Board puts final nail in OSS coffin
By ROY WOOD
In the end it was just a formality. But the last hope for keeping Osoyoos Secondary School open was snuffed out Wednesday when the school board gave third and final reading to a closure bylaw.
Barring a successful legal action by the town, the closure is effective at the end of June. The grade 8-12 students will be transferred to Southern Okanagan Secondary in Oliver.
In a packed and emotionally charged meeting room at the Okanagan-Similkameen school district office, about 140 OSS advocates watched, at times not quietly, as the trustees voted 4-3 to shutter the school.
The vote was the same as April 6 when trustees Sam Hancheroff of Okanagan Falls, Robert Zandee and Rachel Allenbrand of Oliver and Debbie Marten of Keremeos voted to close. Chair Marieze Tarr of Osoyoos, and Trustees June Harrington of Osoyoos and Myrna Coates of Keremeos voted against the motion.
In an interview, Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff repeated the town’s intention to seek legal remedies to stop the closure. She said town lawyers will begin action Thursday based on the contention that the closure and consultation process was flawed.
During a 30-minute “public forum” prior to the vote, a succession of parents, students and politicians pleaded with the board to vote against the bylaw and give Osoyoos a year’s delay so they might develop solutions to the conjoined problems of declining enrollments and budget deficits.
McKortoff reiterated the recent offer of a grant from the town to the school district of about $350,000 a year for three years to ease the financial concerns that led the decision to close OSS.
“We are asking for a one-year delay” to allow the town to work with the board and other jurisdictions to find solutions.
Brenda Dorosz, head of the local Save Our Schools group, told the board: “At the end of the day, our kids have the right to go to school in their community. … I implore you to do the right thing. Accept the money (from the town).”
Provincial NDP education critic Rob Fleming took the opportunity to lay the blame for the financial trouble of the school district at the feet of the Liberal government.
“We have an under-funding problem in public education,” he said, pointing out that under Premier Christy Clark’s government, education funding in BC has gone from being the second best in the country to the second worst.
“We can deal with the underfunding crisis in the election cycle,” he said, “but that’s for next year.” Under the province’s fixed election legislation, there will be a general election on May 9, 2017.
During discussion of the bylaw, several board members, including Coates, lamented shoddy the treatment trustees have faced by the public and the media “often encouraged by community leaders.”
Trustee Marten took time to defend board chair Tarr, who, she said, has taken considerable abuse on social media. “She has done nothing wrong. She is the face of the board and she has been treated very unfairly.”
At several points in the proceedings outbursts from the audience had to be gaveled down by chair Tarr. The most vocal seemed to be Osoyoos Councillor Mike Campol, who interrupted Tarr, Zandee and others over the course of the nearly two-hour meeting.
The decision Wednesday brings an end to a process that began in January when the board unveiled a “facilities plan” aimed at eliminating a structural budget deficit of $530,000 this year and growing to $1.4 million by 2017/18.
The board estimated that closing OSS would save about $400,000 per year.
Public consultations meetings were held in Osoyoos in February and in March, leading to the April 6 meeting at which the closure bylaw received first and second reading. Because the vote was not unanimous, third reading had to wait until Wednesday.
District superintendant Bev Young told the meeting on Wednesday that the transition process to the amalgamated high school is already under way.
Teachers and administrators from both schools met today, she said. “Everybody will do everything to make sure the transition is successful.”