Letters sent to The Premier, Minister of Education, MLA's and Quesnel School District Trustees...
25 July, 2002
Honourable Christy Clark, Minister of Education
PO Box 9045, STN PROV GOVT,
Victoria BC V8W 9E2
Dear Minister Clark:
I write in reference to the recent news that a hunger strike is underway in protest of the Quesnel School District's decision to close the Wells-Barkerville Elementary School. In what has been a season of harsh announcements and closure of services, this announcement surely tops the list of the reckless and the inhumane. How is it that five year olds are expected to make a 160 kilometre round trip on a precipitous mountain road because there weren't funds to keep the school open. Yet, the Chairman of the school board openly admits that the very monies necessary to keep the school open are equivalent (in fact, are less than) that which was awarded to administrators as a salary increase. It would take $100,000 to keep the school open, whereas $120,000 was awarded to salary increases.
The school closure is contested by the community, the local church, the Quesnel mayor, representatives of the Cariboo Regional District and a much wider provincial audience. Will you dismiss this problem as yet another "difficult decision" (as if to say in what is now rote fashion: we struggled with this one, but -- 'imagine' -- arrived yet again at the decision to shut down yet another essential service.') I am, equally, appalled that you, as minister of education, have yet to address the matter by visiting the community or school. It seems that on most matters, you increasingly bury your head, a now familiar gesture of indifference.
A government that so consistently disenchants its constituency is a government that is out of touch before its has barely begun.
I am deeply disappointed, at best.
Theresa Satterfield
Vancouver, B.C.
