How do we keep our city centre vital if there’s no school?

LETTER — Next week, the Kamloops-Thompson school board will deal with a report that, among other things, recommends holding a public meeting to discuss the closure of Stuart Wood elementary school and other adjustments to where students attend classes. The board has received considerable mail on the proposal; of all the letters, I particular like the thoughts expressed in this one.

Both of our now grown-up children attended Stuart Wood elementary. We remember it as a vibrant and even exciting school where our family felt part of a community. That was vital since we were then new to Kamloops. Our question is then: should the decision to close Stuart Wood also rest on more abstract or larger considerations (other than statistics and numbers), such as those described below:

An elementary school must be one of the most essential factors in making for community and neighbourhood. A school is no less important than a town square, a post office, the general store and perhaps more significant than any of these. Are we the less as a community for losing these things in the heart of our city?

The existence of a elementary school must be an important factor in decisions around low-income housing. Will closing Stuart Wood be one more factor in displacing (or not accommodating) poorer families from the city centre? Consider, for example, that a single mother who might, if able to live downtown, have better prospects of employment, transport and other needs. Is everyone eventually to be driven to the suburbs, as the well-to-do take over the prime downtown properties? How are we to retain mixed and vital city centre neighbourhoods if critical infrastructure vanishes — if bussing is the new norm?

Is there value in the link between the past and a perhaps fast moving world in retaining a beautiful heritage school as a source of pride and as a part of the education experience?

FRANK AND JANICE DWYER

Kamloops