This is the numbers people should really be focusing on. These numbers tell a very different story than we are being told by the school board and the provincial government.

Far from closing community schools, they should be reducing classes and thus increasing class sizes. Each equivilent class of students transported by bus is the equivilant of three teachers once bus driver wages, bus fuel costs, and overhead maintenance is figured into the equation.

A school is s sunk cost and should never enter into the equation of a school closure. If its all about dollars, then it should be about the operating costs that include things like added bussing costs, and not the spent capital costs for buildings or the value they could get in a sale to pay for admin costs elsewhere in the district.

If its about class sizes then that can be solved at the school level without school closures... but it would appear we don't have class size issue that are any different than the provincial average, so why all the proposed school closures should be the question people should be demanding.

Its all political IMO and its about social engineering. I heard about a recent provincial report that calls for making 50% of the provincial land base protected area... they want to force BC citizens off the land base and into cities and this fits that agenda very well... using the removal of education as a weapon against the 'heart lands'....

If only they were as smart as you give them credit for Eagleone. Problem is most Political figures in BC have trouble tieing their shoelaces.

They are not smart enough to plan a grand conspiracy to get people off or on the land.

Our School system is screwed because it is run by a strong union, an elected (but primarily volunteer) school board, and politicians. This in itself is a recipe for failure.

The political affiliation of most teachers would be NDP in my opinion, and I suggest that you would find most members of the school boards are also NDP. So we end up constantly fighting and bickering with the Government of the Day. Its doesnt get better when the NDP are in power.

Somehow we have to have education of our Children take preference over politics. Not sure how we can do this, however the present system doesnt seem to work.

School buildings are physical structures and as such need to be heated, kept clean, maintained (roofs, walls, electrical, plumbing, windows...etc), they need to have fire protection and insurance, and so forth.

These costs I am sure do come into the equation when a decision is made as to whether it makes sense to keep a school with declining attendance open or to close it.

"Its doesnt get better when the NDP are in power."

What does that tell us?

12 long Years at School and after this more School , like CNC or BCIT, then Years to pay of Student Loans, we need a better Way, get a no Cost Trades Program in Place and by the Time your 20 at the latest you are a Journeyman, worked great for me, never been out of Work in my Trade!You may get your Hands dirty but it pays the Bills.
What we have here ,is a Education Industry ,make Money from the Students. Now all Teachers may comment why we should be forever in School(I need Students to keep my Job).

This education system is operated the wrong way. All it wants to do is prepare students for university and is doing a poor job of it. One of the courses offered at CNC is upgrading to either enter university or continue at CNC itself. When you are done grade 12 you should be ready to enter either. Not everone wants or needs to go to university so why not prepare those students for what they want to do with their lifes. Start teaching the trades or other skills {hair dressing, light duty nursing,clerk typist ect]. One course that should be on the agenda from grade school on is law and what happens when you break it. Not only the punishment but what happens to the victims. Right now education is a bussness and not really about preparing students for their future.

Hmmm...At the school my son goes to, he cannot get the academic courses he wants as they are not offered every year. It seems that there are a lot of PE classes though. The trade classes are not full and a good portion of the kids that take those classes don't appear keen on learning a trade. They are just doing time. As for teaching kids about the law, what does happen when they break it? Not a lot if you're a kid OR an adult.

While we are at it let's compare the salaries of SD57 administrators compared to the provincial average. Heating and transportation costs should be compared also. Let's get away from the political fluff and get on with educating our kids and grandkids.

Wouldn't the kids be better off in smaller class sizes?? Better one on one. Especially now that we have more "special needs " in the class room.
We are alittle top heavy in all aspects of the education system. Start house cleaning and get rid of the cobwebs.
People whose children all ready went thru the system. and the people who don't have kids in the system pay taxs. We see the waste of money. The teachers are trying but maybe they can try alittle harder too.
Instead of giving all our hard earned money to another country let's give it to our rural schools or a school of your choice. If a community were aloud to support its school thru donations. Think of what we could do???

Palopu, that’s not a grand conspiracy... you wouldn't want to get me started on a grand conspiracy, because it would scare the hell out of you. That post was more of a coincidental conspiracy of a hidden agenda that at times shows its true colors.

A grand conspiracy would involve the Olympics, VANOC, duel loyalty politicians, the bankster elite, local utility companies, and false flag attacks that undermine our national sovereignty. I expect to be hearing a lot more on that front prior to the start of the games. The pieces are already in place for the conspirators... hopefully general awareness will foil any real threats when the time comes.

You hit the nail on the head Palopu.

The only prime professionals in Canada with a union are the TEACHERS! The other professions, such as doctors, dentists lawyers, engineers do quite nicely without the union constraints. By selecting a union bargaining forum, teachers have demoted themselves to a sub-professional status.

Prime professionals? That sounds elitist to me. It matters not if you call it a union or an association the CMA and the Bar Association are still bargaining units. The are two of the most powerful unions (assoc.) in the country.

Instead of closing rural schools, they should be axing useless specialty programs like french immersion and aboriginal choice. Good country children are being denied an education so the french and indians can get catered to.

"The only prime professionals in Canada with a union are the TEACHERS! The other professions, such as doctors, dentists lawyers, engineers do quite nicely without the union constraints. By selecting a union bargaining forum, teachers have demoted themselves to a sub-professional status"

Interesting post Mr. PG. Although I don't think your initial statement is quite accurate, your conclusion may have some element of truth to it. There are actually tens of thousands of professionals across Canada, employed by various levels and branches of government, who are also members of unions (and I suspect they don't have a choice either if they want to work there). Despite what many people think, many of these professionals ARE indeed underpaid when compared to non-unionized workers in the same profession.

In many instances in government positions, the wages are higher than industry average for the lower end jobs and lower than industry average for the higher end jobs. The unions love to leverage the members with higher end skills, in the hopes that they can bring the wages up for everyone. They know that these folks give them bargaining power. Unfortunately for the professionals, it can bite them in the butt because they may end up giving up some additional wages so that others can make more than they generally would elsewhere.

I suppose that's the realities of that enviornment though. Can you imagine an employer like the Province trying to negotiate wages with every teacher individually? It would be an absolute nightmare. I think the biggest problem of the BCTF, HEU, etc., is not that they are a union, but that they seem completely unable to seperate politics from their negotiation of employment contracts. The two are completely different subjects and they do their members a disservice by not recognizing that.

"Good country children are being denied an education so the french and indians can get catered to"

Who are these "good country childern"? Do you mean white english kids? Hypothetically speaking, if there was a french or native kid currently going to a rural school that was about to be closed, would they be getting catered to as well under the new system? Oh let me guess, that would never happen because french and indian kids probably wouldn't be welcome in a "good country" environment . . .

I really do not think racist comments are necessary.

I suspect that there are more things going on with these numbers.

I would like to see where some of these ideas for sustainability are coming from. Actually, demographically, there are less people here than a few years back. Obviously, these families went somewhere.

Long bus rides cost fuel and time. These kids will be too worn out to go to school.

And the district has problems with its building inventory. They are all designed around a model of neighbourhood schools.

What surprises me is how there are no new ideas on what to do with funding or the system. The system in BC sucks because it supposes all will need to go to academic learning, and trades should be promoted, but really, not all kids can start in the highschool level and be at CNC. Some are not mature yet, and could benefit later. Most of the trades people I know will be monitoring apprentices in retirement, from what I hear. Everyone knows you need grade 12, but finding ways to complete that if you are not really cut out to write essays and read a ton of books is a problems.

I wish that the sustainability report discussed savings in the administration side of the board. Frankly, cutting costs there would have lent some credibility to report. Not being willing to take the hit there, and having the Ministry complain about declining enrollment issues, says that they want schools to rely only on per student funding, but it is not per body, but rather how much time the student spends in the school. So, the fixed costs of buildings, that chunk goes bye bye, and now we have not only our schools and those properties at risk, even CNC is in the same boat.

I would like to know what will happen to create economic attractiveness to Prince George when the school services are cut like that. Sure, there are private alternatives, and they do get 50% funding of the public system. I wonder after all that effort to get a medical program here if it will matter when there are no people here to get services, such as schools for their kids? On the one hand, we have people mentioning half filled buildings, but are there other ways to consolidate other community users into these taxpayer heated buildings? Or are we going to think old paradigm here. I was thinking about community hall/schools in the rural areas, and in town, how about renting out classrooms to run other programs, such as artist studio space, or whathaveyou? It would have to be screened because of the kids, but why not think about ways to recover costs from other places and pools of tax dollars? This way, governments won't think some surplus is a licence to spend.