Dunster Group Calls For Meeting With SD57

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C. - The Dunster Fine Arts School Society is hoping to meet face-to-face with School District 57officials at a public meeting set for this Thursday evening in the community hall to hammer out an agreement on the future of the now-closed elementary school...

The DFASS is hoping to purchase the school building and the property it sits on from District 57 for $10.  The society's plan is to run and maintain the building, while having SD57 offer the educational component.

Last week, the school district countered with an offer seeking $39.5-thousand dollars or fair market value, whichever is higher...and gave the DFASS until noon Friday to respond. (click here for previous story)

Founding member of the DFASS, Pete Amyoony, says, "We went back to them with the identical proposal which we put to them in the first place, which we think is fair -- we offered them $10."

"When you go back and look:  the land was donated by a community member, the gym was built by community people, the playground was put in by the community and by the parent advisory council and so on. The paving for the tennis court, that was all done by the community," says Amyoony, who is also president of the Dunster Community Association.

"The community has put thousands of hours into that school, invested in it, to make it a good school and it IS a good school and so we don't want to see it die."

Amyoony says in less than two weeks as a society, the DFASS has close to 100 members.  He says 30 of them came out to a meeting on Saturday to discuss the situation. "It's the timeline that bothers us -- they closed the school down, they gave us from the first of April, basically, until September to come up with some solution and every solution we've proposed has been knocked down by them and, so, we just see it as being uncooperative, almost adversarial and I just don't think that's the attitude the school board should be having with the community."

Local MLA Shirley Bond has also been invited to attend or to send a rep on her behalf.  Amyoony says his group realizes it's a difficult time to pull people together, what with summer vacations, but says that's the position the society has been placed in and they will work with it.

"We're going to open school in September, we're a very determined group and we want educational facilities for our young people in Dunster -- not to be on the bus for an hour-and-a-half to two hours everyday."

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