Dear Editor,
It is, at best, encouraging to have received an e-mail from the Co-Chair of the Board of Education for School District No. 74 in response to the delivery of a petition, signed by some 650 people, requesting a revisit of the Board’s undemocratic decision to adopt “Desert Sands Community School” as the name for the new Ashcroft K-12 school.
Responses that individual correspondents have received indicate that there is a feeling, within the School District, that it would be “undemocratic” to revisit the subject. But Trustees must realize that the whole process, as it was presented, was undemocratic, in that insufficient notification was given to all in the communities affected, and that the opportunity for input was insufficiently publicized, leaving many without a voice.
It also must be said that, despite a majority vote in favour of a school name including “Ashcroft”, these wishes were disregarded; this certainly strikes me as the definition of undemocratic.
Now it remains for the Board of Education to institute a revisitation, and recognize community wishes and demands.
Christopher Roden
Ashcroft, BC