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Lochiel closure meeting takes place Wednesday

The school district is recommending closing the South Langley school and moving the U-Connect program to Simonds Elementary.

Parents and the public can have their say Wednesday night  (May 13) on the possible closure of the Lochiel U-Connect site and moving the program to Simonds Elementary.

The public consultation meeting is at 7 p.m. at Simonds, with trustees in attendance to hear people’s thoughts on the move.

A final decision on whether or not to close Lochiel and move the U-Connect program to Simonds will be made at a special Board of Education meeting on June 9. This meeting is open to the public and will be held at the board office at 7 p.m.

On April 7, the board put forward a notice of motion to consider the possibility of closing Lochiel and moving the U-Connect program to Simonds Elementary.

A community consultation process has been underway for the past several weeks, including working with the PACs, in order to provide feedback to the board.

The Lochiel site is in rural south Langley. The board is looking to sell some properties to come up with funds to contribute to building a new high school in over-crowded Willoughby.

Simonds Elementary is underpopulated and this move could help save the City school from being looked at for closure.

Originally, Simonds was part of a district staff plan to be turned into a middle school. But once the board rejected closing Langley Secondary, those plans were off the table.

In the meantime, two public meetings were held at Lynn Fripps Elementary on Monday, in the afternoon and evening,  to ask parents for their thoughts on possible major changes to schooling in Willoughby to address overcrowding.

The district is looking at reconfiguring elementary schools to K-6, reconfiguring Yorkson Middle School to Grade 7/8 and some school catchment changes.



Monique Tamminga

About the Author: Monique Tamminga

Monique brings 20 years of award-winning journalism experience to the role of editor at the Penticton Western News. Of those years, 17 were spent working as a senior reporter and acting editor with the Langley Advance Times.
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