PAC still fighting to save nature school
It’s now been four weeks of working as hard as we can to save Q’ shintul Mill Bay Nature School, with the PAC in a solid stance of protection and support for our families as well as for everyone who needs to know about the needed repair to the SD79 consultation process.
We have been waiting in an intense uncertainty to talk with the trustees who haven’t responded to us for four weeks. Four weeks! While simultaneously going through a mental health marathon, we have found that the basis of their decision being around population growth is not backed by accurate information, that the decision to end our program has no data to back it up, and there has been no sharing of information to explain how they came to this decision!
We asked SD79 trustees if they knew that our late elder, a residential school survivor, described QMBNS as a place of healing for both indigenous and settler people to practice reconciliation in action. We also asked if they knew of the plan to force transfer out our teachers, giving them and our children one month and half to transition? Do they understand that we are in a village of attachment that doesn’t want to be separated?
My eight-year-old son doesn’t want his school to be forcefully closed and is angry and upset. He says “what, are they out of their minds?” and he thinks that the decision makers “aren’t using their brains properly”.
Erin Ward
Cowichan Bay