WATCH: ‘Status-quo is not an option’ for North Okanagan-Shuswap schools

VERNON, B.C. – The financial challenges the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District is facing will be front and center at a series of town hall meetings the district is planning.

Superintendent Glenn Borthistle says enrollment has dropped 28 per cent in 15 years, the district’s facilities are only around 74 per cent full and the district is expecting $1.3 million shortfall as it tries to balance the books for the next school year.

“The status-quo is not an option. It is either further cuts to programs and services or saving on the facilities side somewhere,” says Borthistle.

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Last March, the Long Term Facility Plan made wide-ranging recommendations that included closing some schools and re-configuring others over a period of years.

The district will be using the town halls to collect feedback on the plan’s recommendations as well as other alternatives developed by a task force this fall. Some of the recommendations the plan made for the 2015 school year went ahead while others did not.

“It is always difficult to have any conversation about a school closure and you are not going to probably ever have a group come forward and say, ‘Yes, we agree that our school should be closed,’ but I think the board does want to hear what the general public thoughts are,” says Borthistle.

Read More: Decision day on school closures looming in the Okanagan Skaha School District

For 2016 the Long Term Facility Plan suggested changes in the Enderby area. The plan called for A.L. Fortune Secondary to become a grade six to 12 school and M.V. Beattie Elementary to be used to teach kindergarten to grade five. It also suggested shutting down Grindrod Elementary.

However, Borthistle cautions that these meetings are not about one school or a specific proposal instead the aim is to look at the issue as a whole. If specific school closures or changes do go ahead Borthistle says separate public consultations would take place.

He is not ruling out changes or closures in September 2016 and because of the challenges the district is experiencing he expects changes no later than September of 2017.

The only Long Term Facility Plan recommendation that is currently being addressed by the school board is the idea of having a kindergarten through grade 12 school in Sicamous. A report on whether that would be feasible is expected next month.

The town hall meetings are Thursday (tonight) at Pleasant Valley Secondary School, Tuesday at the Jackson Campus of Salmon Arm Secondary and January 21 at A.L. Fortune Secondary.