GOLD BRIDGE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
The Gold Bridge Community School is in danger of being closed due to low enrollment.
The closest school is 2 hours away and families will have to move. New families will not be moving here. This will be detrimental to the economic and social development of the valley.
UPDATE AFTER THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING JAN 14 2010
The School District announced a Special Open Board Meeting to be held yesterday at 6 pm (Jan. 14). In essence, they provided one-two days notice. We had expected this meeting to come near the end of January. Many of us were able to join via teleconference. The recommendation from the School Superintendent was to move forward into the closure process.
The PREVIOUS DAY, the new family managing Tyax Resort registered their school age son, which put the school enrolment to 8. The required # by School Policy.
Christopher Roden started off and was clearly not in favour of moving forward to the closure process and cited this 8th student. He also said this area needed a chance to recover economically. Larry Casper, our Trustee had a done a great deal of research on the IPPs and presented that in the context of potential additional population & students. After some procedural wrangling, they voted on the recommendation – the motion was DEFEATED – split vote 3 to 2. This means Gold Bridge School has avoided the closure issue for now. However, should the enrolment be below 8 at Sept 30 or any time following, next January we could be in exactly the same position again.
The community meeting went ahead this afternoon at the School as it is clearly understood that work needs to continue to get the school out of this continual cycle – and in fact – to bring sustainable development to the entire area.
There were close to 140 letters received from full and part time residents, businesses and community groups. The response and support has been phenomenal. THANK YOU ALL!
Take an adult online course at the school. More info can be found here.
The children, parents and residents of the Bridge River Valley thank you for taking the time to care and support our school.
Check out the school website http://moodle.sd74.bc.ca/gbc/