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MEDIA RELEASE
QEA COMMUNITY CONTINUES
TO PUSH THE VSB TO ANSWER TOUGH QUESTIONS
For Immediate Release – February 6, 2008
Vancouver – The Queen Elizabeth Annex second closure
meeting is today, Wednesday, February 6 @ 7pm at the Auditorium
in the Queen Elizabeth Main School. Community and parents
will provide new evidence giving further proof that the
VSB proposal is flawed and rushed.
There are many unanswered questions to the unprecedented
move to sell off a thriving school:
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Why is the VSB proposing to sell an at capacity school
that waitlists 50 students for its French immersion
program annually? What backroom deals are in the wings?
The QEA land is not ‘surplus educational property,’
there are 140 young children attending this school.
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Why are the youngest children at the QEA expected to
move four times before they reach grade eight? Being
an annex, they naturally have one move to a 4-7 school,
the VSB is not taking this move into account, what is
obvious is that these moves have a cumulative effect.
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Are the students at QEA being moved to the Queen Elizabeth
School so that it can reach its 95% capacity to get
government funding for seismic upgrading? How can these
young children be used as pawns to gain government funding?
The resources from UBC and the province need to be utilized
to build the needed schools.
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After all of the building and seismic upgrades the
VSB has been unable to answer the French immersion capacity
question – will capacity be increased for this
extremely successful stream of education? Each meeting
has provided a different response, and misleading and
confusing data.
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District enrolment is expected to dramatically increase
with eco-density re-zoning. Why close a school and sell
the land? This is a short sighted and problematic plan
for future generations of children, taxpayers and public
education in this city and province.
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Is it now the VSB policy to close all small schools
when research clearly shows for younger learners they
are the better educational option?
QEA parents will be presenting alternatives to the VSB
proposal at tonight’s meeting.
The school at UBC should be built, but not at the expense
of a school that is thriving.
For more information please contact:
Kerry Kilmartin, QEA Parent Communications Coordinator
604.822.8244 (daytime), 604.221.0488 (evening) or
kilmartin@ubcpress.ca
www.saveqea.org
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