Vancouver school closure process halted for now
Posted October 18, 2016 3:54 pm.
Last Updated October 18, 2016 5:24 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Newly-appointed Vancouver School Board (VSB) trustee Dianne Turner says there will be no school closures for the “foreseeable future,” Education Minister Mike Bernier confirmed today.
The Minister’s comments come one day after he fired all nine VSB trustees for failing to pass a balanced budget by the June 30 deadline.
“(Turner’s) main goal is to bring stability into Vancouver, into the school districts, and for the students,” Bernier told reporters.
Turner will have to present a long-range facilities plan and eventually another budget, but Bernier did not give her deadline for either as of yet. Bernier says he’s giving her time to adjust to her new role and cope with a lack of senior staff, at least six of whom went on sick leave amid allegations they were bullied by trustees.
“It’s going to be up to Miss Turner to really dissect and look at the finances and really get the back on a strong foothold,” Bernier says.
Trustees were initially supposed to decide in December which schools would be closed from a list of 12, impacting the 2017-2018 school year. This prompted a “save our schools” campaign from parents, complete with numerous petitions and rallies.
The board was supposed to vote on approving a previously rejected budget, including $20 million in cuts, Monday night.
“We have a former board that was making decisions,” Bernier says. “We couldn’t trust most of those decisions. With that, we also don’t want to take into consideration any of the past decisions as being factual.”
Opposition parties slammed the ministry, saying Bernier had made the decision to fire the board before reading the VSB audit report he commissioned from special advisor Pet Milburn.
Bernier says he was told he would get the report on Saturday and because he felt he only had the option to keep or fire trustees, a draft order in council for the board’s dismissal was drafted on Friday. When he read Milburn’s report, Bernier says it only “deepened” his concerns and he asked for the order to be made official on Sunday.
