There’s good reason to question B.C.’s school closure strategy

Re: Case for closures, Editorial, June 23

The Sun editorial backs the province’s directive that school utilization rates in Vancouver and Richmond must be 95 per cent to improve learning conditions for students. It missed a number of key points.

Christy Clark’s government invented this arbitrary policy to cover the fact that in the 2005, 2009 and 2013 elections, the B.C. Liberals promised to seismically upgrade all B.C. atrisk schools by 2020 — a promise that Education Minister Mike Bernier has now broken.

Instead of keeping her promise, Clark and her government decided to force school closures instead. One way to do that? Set an arbitrary 95 per cent utilization rate, and declare that Vancouver schools’ computer labs, art rooms, special education rooms and similar spaces are un-utilized. This must have come as a huge shock to the thousands of students who take classes in these rooms every year, since they are clearly using these spaces.

No research suggests that closing schools in Prince George, Victoria and other parts of B.C. to achieve this arbitrary 95 per cent utilization rate has improved learning conditions or solved the problems of chronic underfunding from the Clark government. It’s a policy of convenience for the government, plain and simple.

On the other end of the spectrum, the B.C. Liberals have also failed to plan for growth in other regions with schools that are stuffed to overcapacity such as in Surrey, Chilliwack and Sooke.

Clark’s government is closing schools rather than making them safe and not building schools when students, families and communities desperately need them. This is all while B.C.’s education funding has gone from the second-best in the country to the secondworst.

School closures are not the way out of the provincial underfunding problem. Vancouver parents have good reason to question this latest edict from the Clark government — and the impact it will have on their children’s education. Rob Fleming, NDP spokesman for education, MLA Victoria-Swan Lake