SD27 Board continues Policy discussion - Community Use of Facilities

Last night - I attended the meeting of the Board of Education for School District 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin) to raise two concerns I had with their draft Community Use of Facilities policy.  Those two concerns were:

a) Requirement for local community groups to have $5 million of liability insurance - This was later clarified by the Secretary-Treasurer (K. Futchner) that this would apply to private groups and not necessarily non-profit groups who would be asked to provide $2 million in 3rd Party Liability Insurance.  This requirement could be waived by the District if a non-profit group was not a registered society or corporation

b) Concern that this policy will have a negative impact on rural schools and the communities that make use of  those schools.  One example I gave was that Wildwood Elementary also doubles as a community centre/hall, given the nearest community hall is in McLeese Lake and it doesn't have a gym for use by those who may require access to one and made mention of the local community kitchen which has a purpose for the rural community of Wildwood

The Board then resumed its' consideration of the draft Community Use of Facilities policy from its' Jan/Feb meetings.  The Board's discussions centered around:

a) Concern that the impact of this policy will have on Rural Communities and the fact that this policy should not be a 'one size fits all' but should account for the nature of rural schools and our rural communities that make use of those schools (Trustee J. Cooper)

b) Access to School Keys/School Alarm Codes - conditions on how this is done... (Trustee S. Boehm)

c) Appropriate charge to user groups (Trustee D. Neufeld)

After some 40 minutes of debate - the Board resolved to refer the item back to its' Business Committee for further discussion/refinement based on its' discussion tonight

I am pleased to see the Board did acknowledge the concerns I brought forward and I agree that this policy discussion is neither easy for them or for the public who has expressed significant concern about this policy change but hopefully a solution can be found, somehow, that works to address the concerns of SD 27 Administration which includes security of School District property and liability concerns and those concerns expressed by the public

~SF