Last night, I put up a post saying that the board voted against closing schools in SD42 (Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows).  I should rephrase that and say that it is for now.  The board announced that they still have work to do and that the same issues still need to be addressed..   The key thing to take from this, is that they were told loud and clear from the  residents that the speed that they are going through the process was too fast to make decisions.  There were/are still far more questions then answers..

Anyhow, Colleen was in Maple Ridge’s The News again..    Here is the article that was published before the meeting last night..

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Three schools picked to close

By Robert Mangelsdorf – Maple Ridge News – October 24, 2007 

More than 150 people attended a rally in Memorial Peace Park on Saturday to protest a district decision to close schools.
Photo by Simone Ponne/the news

Maple Ridge mother-of-three Colleen MacDonald broke down into tears when she found out her daughter’s elementary school was one of three district staff recommended to close on Friday.

She still hasn’t brought herself to tell her daughter Elisabeth that Riverside elementary, the school she loves, may be closed forever in a matter of months.

“I don’t know what to tell her,” she said, sighing in disbelief. “Maybe the trustees can come and tell her why her school is closing.”

Staff recommended the closure of Mt. Crescent, Webster’s Corners and Riverside elementary schools in their school closure report, released Friday.

In the report, staff cited falling enrolment and the need to qualify for provincial capital funding to build new schools in areas where they are needed as the reasons for the closures.

MacDonald and her husband Cameron moved to Maple Ridge from Burnaby in February specifically so their daughters Elisabeth, 5, Megan, 2, and Ainsley, 10 months, could attend the French immersion program offered at Riverside elementary.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do now,” she said. “We’re just in shock.”

Under Ministry of Education guidelines, school districts must have an average utilization rate of 100 per cent for their elementary schools or 95 per cent for all schools district-wide to qualify for capital funding to build new schools.

Currently, the district’s elementary schools have a utilization rate of 82 per cent.

But MacDonald is not convinced the board is taking the concerns of parents into account.

“I’m not a boat-rocker, but I feel it’s really important that parents stand up and do something about this,” said MacDonald. “Yesterday I sat at my kitchen table and explained to my daughter what it means to be Canadian; how we have the right to education and to democracy.

“But now I feel it’s all a bit of joke when I see the school board ignoring all these parents who clearly don’t want this happen and they’re going through with it anyway.”

She’s not alone in that feeling. She was among more than 150 parents and children who came out to protest the school district’s school closure process on Saturday in Memorial Peace Park downtown.

The protest was organized, in part, by Mt. Crescent elementary Parent Advisory Chair Susan Carr.

She has started a petition to stop the district’s school closure process and has already received more than 300 signatures.

NDP MLA Mike Sather was on hand at the rally and says the closures are a huge loss to community.

“An inner-city type school like Mt. Crescent has a number of special needs programs for their students,” he said. “Are they going to get the same services at another school?”

Like many at the rally Sather wonders why the district’s school closure process has been so quick.

“I haven’t heard an answer to why the process is so fast,” he said. “We know there’s no money for new schools for at least five years.”

On June 13, school board trustees voted to adopt the recommendations of the Cornerstone Planning Group, an independent consultation firm hired by the district to look at the district’s declining enrolment.

In their report they recommended closing up to five elementary schools, and suggested a one to two year feasibility study to identify which schools should be closed.

But David Whetter, a partner with Cornerstone who prepared the report, says the board is right on track.

“We were giving a pretty broad range [of time needed],” said Whetter. “The district’s timeline is not that different to the one we recommended.”

He said that it takes at least three to five years to get a new school built, so the district needs to act fast in order to support areas in east Maple Ridge where schools are well over capacity.

“If you want to get a school open in 2012, you’re going to have to start the process now.”

School board trustees will vote on whether or not to adopt the staff’s recommendations tonight at 7 p.m. at Thomas Haney Centre.

Both Carr and MacDonald are encouraging all parents to come to the meeting and have their voices heard.

“It’s important to act now before it’s too late,” said MacDonald.

Should the board choose to accept the staff’s recommendations, another round of public consultations will take place in the coming months.

Trustees will vote to finalize the decision on Jan. 10, 2008. All schools singled out for closure will be closed at the end of the school year, on June 30, 2008.

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