The Cowichan Valley school district will close six schools and begin charging students to ride the bus as it struggles to eliminate a $3.7-million shortfall.
The closings were approved by trustee Mike McKay, who was appointed last year after the B.C. government fired the elected board for passing a deficit budget.
A restructuring plan, which includes the closings, eliminates middle schools in favour of kindergarten to Grade 7 elementary schools and Grade 8 to Grade 12 secondary schools.
Koksilah Elementary, A.B. Greenwell Elementary, Somenos Rural Traditional, Yount Elementary and école Mill Bay Elementary will close at the end of June.
Charles Hoey VC, an adult learning centre, will close Dec. 31 and its classes will move to another location.
School district superintendent Joe Rhodes said A.B. Greenwell was already empty due to concerns about mould, while Yount was temporarily re-opened to house the students from Greenwell. Both will now officially close and the 90 students will attend Palsson Elementary in Lake Cowichan.
The six closings will affect about 540 students.
Rhodes said the district faces declining enrolment and rising costs that the provincial government has failed to cover.
“We’re built as a district for about 11,000 students and we only have about 7,600 right now,” he said. “So we had a lot of excess space. So how can we re-purpose our facilities to downsize so that we’re not spending so much money maintaining them?”
The district has 29 school sites, school board documents say.
Rhodes said the school closings will save about $2 million, leaving the district to trim a further $1.7 million in programs and services. He said the district will still have to cut staff and increase class sizes to balance the books.
The provincial funding formula reduces money to the district as its enrolment drops despite the rising cost of employment insurance, medical service plan premiums and benefits, Rhodes said. “All of those types of things go up and the funding formula doesn’t compensate us for that. We believe that the funding formula needs to be examined.”
McKay, superintendent of the Surrey school district, also approved a plan to charge students $200 a year to ride the school bus. The fee drops to $120 for a second child and $80 for a third. The district will waive fees for those unable to pay.
Rhodes said the district’s policy states that it will provide transportation for students who live in a school’s catchment area, but too far away to walk.
The policy, however, was forgotten over time and the district began spending increasing amounts to bus students to “schools of choice” outside their catchment area, he said.
Rhodes said about 4,400 students use the bus system.
Former board chairwoman Eden Haythornthwaite, who was among the trustees fired last year, called the closings “catastrophic” and expressed concern about the lack of public scrutiny. “The budget is going through without anyone vetting what that actually looks like.”
Haythornthwaite said the busing fees make little sense.
“Maybe you think $200 a year is no big deal, but that is definitely going to have downward pressure on ridership, which means we’re going to have upward pressure on private cars, which is exactly the opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing in terms of public policy.”
