Hi West Bench! I am a Recreation Coordinator with the RDOS and I am working on putting some recreation programming together for your community. Next month, we will be offering a "Summer Sampler" series that will be absolutely FREE at Mariposa Park . Please check out the attached image for more information.
Dear West Bench Community,
We have an important opportunity to let the BC gov’t know why our community school is important, and why it deserves long-term stable funding.
By the Jan. 9th deadline, the provincial gov’t has invited all community members to contribute their thoughts on the importance of our school to children and as a community asset. The responses go directly to a task force currently designing a new funding model for schools such as ours.
Please visit: http://engage.gov.bc.ca/ruraleducation/ to participate in the survey called “A Conversation about Rural Education”.
The survey contains 4 questions.
School District 53 “flatly rejected" a proposal from the Town of Osoyoos to help subsidize Osoyoos Secondary School. The Osoyoos proposal was similar to the West Bench proposal in that local government offered to use local tax dollars to keep a school open. SD53 provided the following rationale in its letter to Mayor Sue McKortoff rejecting the town’s offer,
The proposal you have made is not consistent with the spirit and intent of the School Act funding provisions which are aimed at providing equal access to educational programs for all […] Students in communities with the ability and willingness to contribute monies in addition to assessed school taxes would gain significant advantages over students in communities which could not provide these funds.
