First Day of classes
Sept. 17, 2002
Community of Wells wins Half the School Battle!
Children Return to Classes Today: Fight to Reopen School Continues
For immediate release Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Youngsters in Wells are heading to school today, September 17 - two weeks
late and in a makeshift classroom - but in their own community and not
on the bus. The return to classes follows an agreement hammered out late
last week between the District of Wells and the Quesnel School Board,
after trustees accepted a proposal by the municipality to educate children
temporarily in the Wells Community Hall. The school board is providing
the teacher, and has hired Jennifer Freeman of Wells to teach the K to
Grade 7 class of 16 students.
Parents and others in the community had stubbornly resisted sending their
children 77 kilometres by bus to Barlow Creek Elementary School, after
the Quesnel School District decided July 3 to close the Wells School.
They're relieved this interim solution has been reached, and are pleased
at the hiring of Freeman, who has taught previously in Wells.
The compromise followed a five-month hard-fought campaign of lobbying,
presentations, demonstrations, public meetings, a parents' boycott of
registering children in Quesnel, and a hunger strike begun by local artist
and Chamber of Commerce Vice-President Claire Kujundzic. The strike involved
more than 50 people, including Wells Mayor Dave Hendrixson, who fasted
for 33 days, as well as Quesnel Mayor Steve Wallace and BC Federation
of Labour President Jim Sinclair.
But the campaign isn't over. The community still believes the best place
to educate their children is in the school designed for that purpose.
As municipal councillor Judy Campbell points out, "every child in
Wells brings over twice as many dollars to the district budget as urban
children do. The school district's own figures show that the Wells School
operates with a $65,000 profit, but that doesn't appear good enough for
this board. Why do we earn more education dollars for our school district
and have to put up with less than any other child in the district?"
Wells-Barkerville Save Our Schools Committee spokesperson Dave Jorgenson
notes that Education Minister Christy Clark's refusal to revise funding
policies has created an incentive for school boards throughout BC to close
schools in small communities. "According to the structure of the
formula it's presently in a school board's best interest to close rural
schools and pocket the money they generated. The Minister allows this
even though the guidelines say the grant is meant to assist the economics
of small schools and rural communities. The present system is immoral
and the Minister's Task Force is too little, too late for 40 rural schools
in the province."
As children return to classes in Wells, the Committee will continue its
efforts to have rural educational funding dedicated to rural schools,
and will carry its fight to reopen the Wells-Barkerville School into November's
election.
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For more information contact:
Dave Jorgenson, Spokesperson, Wells-Barkerville Save Our Schools Committee
250-994-2345
Gary Champagne, Chief Administrative Officer, District of Wells 250-994-3330
