Beyond the education of children, schools serve as a hub for all sorts of activities from sports to gathering places, both formal meetings and chance encounters.
After hours, playgrounds are used by local children and families, and even older students seem mysteriously drawn back to the school grounds after hours to meet and socialize.
Whatever the reason, schools are central to the life of our communities, all the more so because there physical location is often also central.
When the school board starts looking at closing schools, as the Okanagan Skaha School District is being forced to do, a closure is going to affect a larger portion of the community than just students and their parents.
It’s vital that these buildings not just be shuttered and left until enrolment increases make them viable again. There is not shortage of possibilities: the school board heard a number of good ideas at a public meeting this week, ranging from subdividing the fields from the schools so the city could continue to utilized them as part of the parks inventory, to the French language school, École-entre-lacs, wanting to shift their operations to the neighbouring and much larger McNicoll Park Middle School.
The school trustees have said they don’t want to future use to be part of their decision on what schools to close, but that may not be in the best interests of either the community or the school district.
We see including future use as a vital part of the decision-making process.
The school board has already established a list of options for closures. Choosing an option that is supported by a group wanting to make an alternate use of the facility keeps that facility alive as a living, breathing part of the community, and starts badly needed funds flowing into school district coffers sooner rather than later.