KISSM ponders possible cancellation

By MIKE YOUDS

With summer school up in the air due to the school strike/lockout, so is Kamloops Interior Summer School of Music with more than 200 students registered for the July 7-25 camp.

Entering its 36th season, the music school was to have set up at Beattie School of the Arts, JP campus, and South Kamloops secondary. Along with every public school in the province, they remain behind picket lines, community resources caught in an increasingly frustrating, uncertain and chaotic labour dispute.

Kim Mangan, executive director of KISSM, said she’s looked all over the city for an alternative site to the schools and can’t find one. Her best hope is that a Wednesday meeting of the BCTF executive, upon which hinges the whole issue of picket lines and summer school use provincewide, will sympathize with nonprofit, non-aligned community groups.

“We’re really hoping that the union comes back and lets us know that it’s not going to picket us, that it’s going to treat us like an independent business,” Mangan said.

Independent contractors use Ralph Bell elementary in Valleyview and there has been no picketing of that site, she noted. The Big Little Science Centre at Happyvale elementary is in the same situation as a nonprofit and hasn’t been blocked by pickets.

“We’re a nonprofit. It’s complicated, I know, but we’re hoping that after 36 years we won’t have to cancel.”

Stu Wormsbecker of Kamloops Thompson Teachers Association said the situation with nonprofits is part of the overall uncertainty and chaos surrounding the simmering dispute.

“We can’t say,” he said of any summer school activities. “There is a BCTF executive meeting Wednesday to hammer out what it’s going to look like if this is a protracted event.”

He said he understands why KISSM hopes to use the schools with their superior music facilities. Big Little Science Centre is operating without a custodian, since members of CUPE won’t cross the BCTF line. Wormsbecker wonders what will happen with all of the extensive school maintenance routinely scheduled during summer months if the strike/lockout can’t be resolved.

Then there’s the directive from the LRB, requiring teachers to provide marks when some assignments are not yet marked. “This is totally unknown. We’ve never had this before. It’s a real nightmare.”

The same confusion was evident at Monday night’s Kamloops-Thompson School Board meeting, which capped the school year with unsettling news from outgoing district superintendent Terry Sullivan.

Sullivan said the short notice given prior to the full strike created difficulty for parents, administrators and teachers. They worked quickly to ensure school buildings were secured and there were no animals left in classrooms. They’ve made it through the delivery of provincial exams, deemed an essential service, but it’s unlikely report cards and be issued if the strike/lockout continues.

Denise Harper, school board chairwoman, said she’s heard the pleas for help from KISSM. “I know it’s a really important feather in the cap of this city,” she said.