Parents fighting to save unique Mill Bay school from returning to catchment pool
Evan Jamieson’s nine-year-old son Oliver has thrived at Mill Bay Nature School in Mill Bay, B.C., despite all of his challenges.
“He has special needs, autism, ADHD and limited language capacity,” said Jamieson.
The school, which takes students from kindergarten to Grade 7, offers a unique learning environment based around inclusion, with a heavy emphasis on outdoor learning.
“It’s really been an unqualified success story for him,” said Jamieson.
As of next year, the school will begin a transition prompted by the Cowichan Valley School District, to be rolled back into the school catchment system.
“What we’re doing is over the next three years moving kindergarten to Grade 2 into the Mill Bay School and having George E. Bonner School, which is just down the road, a Grade 3 to 7 school,” said Jeff Rowan, assistant superintendent, communications and community relations for the district.
Rowan says the Mill Bay Area is experiencing the fastest growth in the entire district. Currently Mill Bay Nature School has an enrolment of roughly 90 students.
“It has a capacity of over 200,” said Rowan.
He says the district needs that under-utilized space as projections show all the schools in the Mill Bay Area will be at capacity within the next few years.
“For us personally, it’s been life-changing,” said Stewart Hachey, a parent of a student at Mill Bay Nature School.
“Their individual strengths have been valued,” said Jaime Blacklock, another parent of a student at the school.
For these parents, the potential loss of the school's unique way of teaching and inclusion has been nothing short of devastating.
“(The district) did not just create a program, they created a community that is now a family,” said Hina Charania, a parent at the school.
The parents now fear that family is being broken-up.
“This is a reconfiguration, this is not a school closure,” said Rowan.
The district says although some of the schools programming will change with the different grades coming in, a nature component to learning will stay.
“We’re fighting it in every way we can,” said Jamieson.
The school’s PAC hopes the district will reconsider the schools reconfiguration and has created a Change.org petition, including taking their concerns public.
“As soon as soon as I can stop doing media I’m reaching out the B.C. Supreme Court to start the process of filing for a judicial review on this decision,” said Jamieson.
He says the school needs to be saved in its current configuration.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.