First Wells and now Dunster have set the provincial model for elementary schools on edge. New ways of delivering education have been hatched on the fly in the Prince George region and Minister of Education Margaret MacDiarmid was in the northern capital on Monday talking about the effects.
"It sounds like a working solution has been found (in Dunster)," she said while on tour at Harwin elementary school, with a meeting scheduled for later on Monday with a Dunster parent representative. "I understand the parents are happy and the school board is happy. I have talked with the parents a few times and with Minister (Shirley) Bond and Minister (Pat) Bell, and it has been difficult. My understanding now is they are happy and have found a way forward."
Until now, parents at Dunster had set up a tent classroom and were group homeschooling their kids since the closure of the Dunster Fine Arts elementary school. They recently made a purchase arrangement with School District 57 to own the former school building for about $40,000 plus maintenance costs in exchange for a teacher to come work there.
In Wells, a similar agreement was hashed out. There, the regional district owns the community's elementary school while the school district supplies the teachers under contract.
"We really value rural schools and we do provide extra support for that, but in some ways we are not meeting the needs of all rural schools," MacDiarmid said. "We are hearing that those schools are the heart and soul of their communities and we are trying to find a way."
During last week's Union of B.C. Municipalities conference, it was one of the themes that kept recurring. Rural representatives passionately expressed how land values collapse, economic development stagnates, and the population stalls at agriculture-focused or retirement-focused families when the rural school closes. Investment shies away from an area with no school, it was said time and again.
The situation is asserting itself near Prince George again, in the form of Giscome elementary school which was closed due to structural condemnation. It is now threatened, due to the cost of replacing the school plus the small student population.
"(Closing a school) is always tough when it's 'your school' but when the next school is six or eight blocks away that is different than an hour or more on a highway (to the next nearest school) and I know that," the minister said. "(SD57 officials) have said that Giscome is the No. 1 priority here."
A challenge posed by critics of the new ways of delivering rural schooling is standard education. MacDiarmid stressed that rural hospitals don't have the same depth of specialist services that regional hospitals do, and likewise rural schools will not have all the bells and whistles that urban schools have.
What they often do have, however, is a smaller school population for better teacher interaction, deeper connectivity to the community, and core curriculum standards that ensure every teacher is trained and equipped the same across the province.
Today is World Teacher Day and MacDiarmid paid tribute to Ms. Gaddis in Salt Lake City who taught her in Grade 3 when she had travelled there from Canada by way of England and needed a stabilizing force in her educational life.
"I want to express my gratitude to B.C.'s teachers," said MacDiarmid. "As I've travelled the province, I have met many students and adults who have told me wonderful stories about the great teachers they have had, and the tremendous difference those teachers have made in their lives. As well, I have met teachers who have inspired me with their ideas, creativity and caring, and made me want to work with them to make our excellent education system even better."
Some of that creative thinking has, in the Central Interior, extended right to the buildings themselves and the models by which education is delivered to local children.
