Parents and community members in Salmon Valley are advocating for the re-opening of Salmon Valley Elementary school.
The school was closed in 2010 along with five other rural schools as the School District No. 57 (SD57) was faced with budget shortfalls at the time.
Samantha Ludvigson sent a letter to SD57’s board of education explaining the need for the school to reopen.
She said the community of Salmon Valley consists of four rural areas in addition to Salmon Valley itself including Bear Lake, Summit Lake, Wright Creek Road and Old Summit Lake Road and all five of these communities have been growing consistently with young families moving to the area.
“There has been recent discussion within our communities as to how strenuous it is on our families that there is not a servicing school for our children.”
She said families are struggling with long bus rides or students missing school because of bad weather conditions, and some students are not even able to get into the nearest catchment school - Springwood Elementary - forcing parents to make the difficult decision to home school.
“Our community is directly impacted by no longer having a facility that could not only provide an education for our growing population but also act as a centre for daycare services, strong start programming and community events.”
In her correspondence to the district, she included a survey from community members as well as letters of support from the Salmon Valley Community Association.
“I strongly encourage SD57 to get the ball rolling and communicate with our community. Salmon Valley and all surrounding rural areas have a right to be heard not only as taxpayers but as parents of children who have a basic human right to education in our community,” said Ludvigson.
“The community members are here and ready to work with SD57 to do what we need to and get our Salmon Valley school reopened.”
In a letter of response to Ludvigson, board chair Rachael Weber said, “the information provided will also be considered as part of the Long Range facilities plan process to occur in the fall.”
