The decision to close the school was more or less to be expected says the PAC for Bridge Lake Elementary School.
Eric De Vries is the PAC’s Treasurer.
“The only disappointment we have is that the School District is bending to this. They are accepting it to keep on going along with these reductions and I think that there’s an also end to it because we’re not going to have any rural schools left at all and that has a huge impact on the long term on the development of rural areas.”
De Vries says the PAC will try to investigate what the possibilities are to start a private school.
He says they have filed two complaints with the province’s ombudsman-one regarding the behavior of management at the school.
“It’s sad that finances are prevailing over the well-being of our children or the education of our children,” says De Vries.
School District Number 27 Trustees voted unanimously to close the school which has 8 students enrolled Tuesday evening.
Schools with an enrollment between 9- 110 students receive $162,400 while schools with an enrollment of 8 or fewer received less than 50% of that.
“What we heard from Board Members was the challenges of looking at the problem of critical decline in enrollment,” says Chair Tanya Guenthener. “We took into account a large volume of public input which was received in a variety of methods.”
Bridge Lake Elementary School will effectively close end of July with students attending Horse Lake Elementary located 38km away.