SD 20 to reconsider community perspectives in regard to Planning for the Future
By Kyra Hoggan
Next Monday will see a special open board meeting of School District 20 (SD 20), in which trustees will vote on a motion that may well see the district heading back to the drawing board regarding future cuts and district configuration.
The meeting, to be held in the Trail Middle School gymnasium at 7 p.m., has been called after the SD 20’s Planning for the Future document sparked massive contention and upset, particularly in Castlegar and Rossland, where schools were slated for closure.
The motion to be considered reads as follows, “That the Board consult with its communities to develop educational priorities for our students in order to incorporate this information into our Planning for the Future process; and, that the Board postpone the currently scheduled public meetings.”
Castlegar trustee Bev Maloff said, until or unless the motion passes, it’s tough to say how the motion will be translated into action by the district … but she doesn’t think it will necessarily mean scrapping the Planning for the Future document altogether.
“It would just mean putting it aside for the moment and looking at the educational needs of each community,” she said. “(If the motion passes), the board and district staff will be consulting with each community, and asking what they’d like education to look like within their communities.
“I think we needed a little more information about what 20th century education means to each community; about what they want to see.”
She also said Planning for the Future is, ” an excellent document, one of the best I’ve seen,” and reiterated that it represents an enormous amount of hard work on the part of district staff.
How much of it will be used to inform further district decisions, though ….Maloff was unwilling to speculate.
“I just don’t know. If the motion is passed, we’ll schedule another meeting to determine how we’ll proceed, and what the community consultations will look like.”
