Kids pay price for B.C. school underfunding
Metrovalley Newspaper Group - Langley Times
July 1, 2008
Opinion: Irene Lanzinger, President, B.C. Teachers' Federation

Editor: Another school year comes to an end with threats of more closures.

At the end of this month, 21 schools in communities across British Columbia will close. Students and parents in Surrey, Langley, Prince Rupert, Comox, and Nanaimo are just some that will lose their neighbourhood school. Another 24 schools are threatened to close in several more communities.

The Gordon Campbell government has spent the last seven years shutting down schools and ignoring community concerns. Since 2001, British Columbia has lost 150 schools and 22,000 students have been displaced. This new round of closures will displace as many as 8,000 more. Thousands of kids and dozens of communities have paid the price for the provincial government's chronic under- funding.

Amazingly, the Ministry of Education is now worried too many schools have been closed. Ministry officials are concerned that the system has lost too much capacity, especially if the government follows through on a plan to create all- day kindergarten. The Campbell government is not concerned with the impact their cuts have had on communities and public education, just their ability to achieve their bottom line.

This sudden turnaround shows how the government is out-of-touch and short- sighted. The Campbell government wants to look at keeping schools open now, but they are 175 schools too late.

School closures hurt kids, their families, and our communities. It's time to put an end to these short-sighted closures.