It was just after the beginning of the 2011/2012 school year when the municipality announced that the doors to the community school had to stay closed on weekends for budgetary reasons. Now, after lengthy negotiations with representatives of the School District 45, Christine Walker, the municipality's community recreation officer, is pleased to announce that a new joint use agreement has been finalized that will now place facility bookings within the responsibility of the municipality. "It was fully endorsed by our council and the [West Vancouver School District] board," Walker said.
"It was a challenge when we had to close the facility on weekends," Walker recalls, adding that the terms of reference in the former agreement were not clear. "We would get invoices [from the school district] but it wasn't well defined what they were for. But now we worked out an agreement that makes it easy to move forward. It also doesn't lose the history of our community school as it makes special mention of the community's contributions."
The new terms of the agreement require the municipality to oversee the rental of the facility and Walker thinks that this will allow for improved community access. "The way it was set up before was that the municipality paid money but didn't any receive revenue," she said. "Now we will be responsible for the booking and also get the revenue. The rental fees will be based on West Vancouver School District's fees."
Updating the agreement took a long time but Walker sees the outcome as positive for all the parties involved. "We had lots of meetings with the school district staff and got the sense that neither one wanted to continue in this way," Walker said. "It was also recognized that the municipality couldn't continue to subsidize the facility without having some control." Walker said that taking bookings for the facility will now be the job of the community school coordinator. "It's a one-stop-shop now," she said. "The community school coordinator will also continue to be responsible for the community education programs that fall under municipal jurisdiction. And community recreation programming can also be booked at the school."
"The school district is still committed to fund a portion of the wages for the community coordinator position," Walker said. "But the municipality will now cover all the cost directly associated with community access outside regular school hours." Walker is excited to be working closely with the community school coordinator and mentioned that online registration for community education and recreation programs will be possible soon. "Having online access will be a great new tool," she said.
As much as the joint-use agreement is a step in the right direction, it won't solve all the challenges of opening the school on weekends but Walker hopes to have it open for washroom access beginning in September. "During the summer, the school will remain closed on Saturdays and Sundays but we have port-a-potties at the site," she said.
Walker also stresses that the municipality wants to keep rental rates affordable. "The rates will be higher than they are right now," she said. "But they can be supplemented with fundraising efforts. We don't want to exclude people because of finances."
Walker said that a joint management committee oversees the implementation of the agreement it has members that represent the municipality, the school district, the community school association and the parents advisory committee. "There is grass roots input to what's happening regarding access to the school," Walker said, adding that the first meeting of the committee was very encouraging. "BICS is getting a new facelift. There will be work done along the grass field and the school district will put in a new retaining wall it's going to look like a whole new place come September."
