Here is a copy of the article that my wife was quoted in! I’m glad to see that you stood up for what you believe!! 
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Parents Worry About School Closures
By Robert Mangelsdorf
Staff Reporter
Sep 22 2007
Happy faces were few and far between at School District 42’s school closure meetings held this week.
Hundreds of parents turned up at the six public meetings, held Tuesday and Wednesday, to voice their concerns about the possibility of their child’s school being closed down due to declining enrolment in the district.
Colleen MacDonald was one of them.
MacDonald moved to Maple Ridge from Burnaby in February, in part because of the district’s schools. Now, she doesn’t know if the French immersion program her daughter attends at Riverside elementary will be around next year, and doesn’t know what to do if it isn’t.
“There hasn’t been any clear information on what is going to happen to these programs,” she said.
Her response is one the district is hearing a lot of, said assistant superintendent Randy Cranston.
He said most questions and issues raised by parents at the public meetings will be addressed, and answers will be posted online as well as be displayed at the next round of public consultations on Oct. 2 and 3.
However, Macdonald wonders if the district is really taking parents concerns seriously.
She’s part of a growing number of parents who are frustrated by the district’s school closure process and see it as merely an attempt to pacify upset parents.
“I’m hopeful that they are going to listen to us, but I’m hesitant to believe that,” she said after the meeting. “In the end, it all comes down to dollars and cents.”
Some things can’t be quantified so easily, says MacDonald.
“With all these numbers floating around, we seem to forget that we’re talking about children here,” she said, her voice strained with emotion. “My daughter is not a number, her name is Elisabeth, she’s five-and-a-half, and she’s bright and eager and she loves her school and I don’t want to drag her away from somewhere that she feels safe and comfortable.”
She’s also upset that the district has placed a gag order on its teachers and principals, effectively preventing them from commenting on the closures.
“We’re supposed to be coming together as a community here to bounce ideas each other and we’re missing this whole group of educated people who spend nine hours a day at these schools with our children,” she said.
Cranston defended the move, saying that as employees of the district, principals and teachers have a “fiduciary” duty not to get involved.
“What we learned through the Meadowland [elementary] and Maple Ridge Primary closures is that principals and teachers can get as emotional as parents about their school,” he said. “They can express their feelings, no can stop them from doing that, they just can’t rally the troops.”
He said their input is still being considered as part of the school closure process, just not publicly.
The school board will vote on district staff’s recommendations on which schools are to be closed at the Oct. 24 school board meeting.
However, parents will still have a chance to have their voices heard before the final decision is made at a special school board meeting on Jan. 10, the location of which is yet to be determined.
Cranston says any school that will be closed likely wouldn’t be sold off.
According to a new Ministry of Education policy the district was apprised of only last week, the district must allow the provincial government use of the property, should it so need it. If the provincial government has no use for the facility, the district must make it available for local civic government or community groups to use, should they need it. Only if none of these groups want to use the facility, can the district sell the property.
However, one of the goals adopted by the board as part of the school utilization study states that any school that is closed “should not be deemed surplus” and won’t be sold until “it has been determined that it is highly unlikely that the site will be required to meet long term requirements.”
“We can’t guarantee the schools won’t be sold, but they must undergo this process which takes two-and-a-half to three years,” said Cranston.
The next school closure public meetings will take place at Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge and Garibaldi secondary schools on Oct. 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. and at Westview, Thomas Haney and Samuel Robertson Technical secondary schools on Oct. 3 from 7 to 9 p.m.
