Letters sent to The Premier, Minister of Education, MLA's and Quesnel School District Trustees...
10 September 2002
Attn: Christy Clark
Minister of Education
Dear Minister,
The community of Wells is being manipulated by the school trustees of
the community of Quesnel to pay ridiculously inordinate fees for education.
I would like to draw your attention to the following information provided
by Mr. Tim Klotz, Secretary/Treasurer for School District #28, Quesnel.
Every child enrolled in a district earns for that district from the ministry of education $5308. In addition children with disabilities, native children, and rural children all earn for the district additional funding grants.
Assuming that native and disabled children are spread
evenly throughout the district, ( although in the case of native, most
are also rural) look at the unding disparities.
The average urban child brings $5308 to the school district. The children
from Wells brings $5308 plus $5556($100,000 small community supplement
divided by 18 kids) or $10,863 per child to the school district. The total
contribution by Wells students and school to the SD #28 budget is $195,544.
(18 times $10,863)
The Secretary/Treasurer's own figures on the latest operating costs for the school are $130,546, so they are making $65,000 off of our students and school.($195,544 generated minus $130,546 expense as reported by the school district Secretary/Treasurer).
Apparently, having a rural school operate at a 50% profit is not enough. They now want our community to pay an additional $55,000 as a municipality to keep the school open bringing the total contribution per child to the school district up to $13,919.
If we went along with this it will mean that the people of the municipality of Wells will contribute $120,000 more dollars to the school board than it costs to run our school. No other child or municipality in our district will be subjected to such ridiculous economics.
Despite your claim to have given authority to school
boards to make decisions, I still pay my taxes to the Provincial Government.
You do have a responsibility to intervene when the body to whom you have
given spending authority (sd #28) is not acting in the best interests
of the children. In this case our community is being seriously manipulated
and even held hostage by the School Board of another community in order
to extort vast sums of money from our children and taxpayers pockets.
We cannot wait for a Royal Task Force or other body to make recommendations.
Our children are presently not in school and awaiting the reopening of
the Wells school.
Please intervene immediately so that our child can return to school.
Dave Jorgenson
Spokesman,
Wells, Barkerville Bowron Community School Committee
Box 206, Wells, BC, V0K 2R0
ph:1-250-994-2345
fx: 1-250-994-2347
cc: Gordon Campbell, John Wilson