3 - Friday, November 22, 1985 - North Shore News Tide Table For Pt. Atkinson Time Heft. 0210 11.1 0725 8.3 1405 14.8 2105 6.5 0325 12.0 0825 89.3 1430 14.5 2135 «5.4 0425 12.9 0920 10.1 1465 14.2 2200 4.4 Classified Ads.......64 Entertainment ....... 58 Friday 22 Lifestyles...........55 Mailbox.............7 Saturday 23 Real Estate.........18 Scene Changes......62 1 A re 3 Travel............. 59 What's Going On.....64 Food: 57 Table-hopping Timothy Renshaw discovers the meaning of REAL MAN at a new restaurant. Collins: 8 Kot all Collins are created equal. Doug queries Mary's motives. island education battle brews . Weather: Mostly sunny Friday ana Saturcay. Highs near 2°C. Sunday 24 Breet ee agge aise SND eee LEAT ORR SIE ie ASO oo TR oot “CECH Py A MINISTRY of Education decision to move Bowen Island into. West Vancouver School District has left island parents adrift in a sea of controversy. : Thomas Ferguson, one of ’ three candidates who ran for two positions in Sunshine Coast school district, said the decision to move Bowen Isiand from Sunshine Coast's District 46 to West Vancouver’s District 45 schoo! district has already © been made by the provincial ministry of education without allowing Bowen Island residents the chance to cast their vote in a refer- endum on the matter. A: single community’ school currently services Bowen Island’s 140 students in kindergarten through rade seven. The island's students have therefore been educated in two school districts since 1950, with its elementary students current- ly residing in District 46 and its secondary students mov- ing on to West Vancouver's District 45. .Ferguson, who is awaiting the outcome of an election recount in a vote that thus far separates him from a school board seat by 28 ° votes, said he ran on a plat- form supporting a Bowen Island referendum and garnered 65 per cent of the Bowen Island vote. “Obviously there was a lot of support for the referen- dum and now the parents of Bowen Island have been denied the opportunity to express their opinion. The ministry of education has subverted the democratic process here.’” Ferguson, who works in ~Vancouver but has been a Bowen Island resident since 1979, maintains that submerging Bowen Island in the more populous West Vancouver school district would reduce representation for the island’s parents in NEWS photo lan Smith A CITY of North Vancouver employee piles salt into a mountain. The city is keeping lots of salt on hand for what looks like a long, cold, snowy winter ahead, the running of their school and the education of their children. He added that decreasing enrolment in West Vancouver schools made it desirable for District 45 to absorb Bowen Island: “Empty schools have to be. filled.” Enrolment in West Van- couver schools dropped by oes per cent froin. 1984 to But Bowen Island resident” Gail Taylor thinks Ferguson is needlessly dragging children and their education into what she says is largely a political issue. A resident of the island for the past 23 years, Taylor has three children, one who has just graduated from West Vancouver Senior Sec- ondary, another currently in the school; and another in the Bowen Island communi- ty school. The travel difficulties of sending secondary students to school in District 46 facil- ities such as those in Gib- son’s Landing, she said Wednesday, make West Vancouver high schools the only feasible alternative for Bowen {Island parents and their children, “So we are sending our students to West Vancouver schools but we can’t elect representatives to the district’s school board and we send all our money to the District 46."’ Taylor adds that being educated in two different school districts created pro- blems for Bowen Island children. The referendum issue, she said, had been discussed since 1979 and it THE WEST Vancouver School board gave second reading Monday night to new policies outlining student excursions outside of B.C. An overhaul of the present policy guidelines was deemed necessary by the District 45 board after trustees voted Oct. 28 to cancel approval of all field trips until a review had been given to board pol- icy governing such trips. The field trip freeze resulted from trustee debate over the educational value of trips to such out-of-province destinations as Mexico and Quebec. In introducing the pro- posed new policies, trustee Pat Boname said she hoped they would be discussed with the understanding that travel was an accepted and valuable educati..;1al tool. The seven proposed con- ditions for trips outside of B.C. include guaranteeing the appropriate use of in- structional time and staff time, appropriate funding practices, liability coverage, travel arrangements, ap- propriate supervision and equal opportunity access for all students. The conditions will be ad- dressed by each West Van- couver school’s Excursion Planning Committee (EPC), a group that will be made up of parents, school staff and administration. in addition, four regula- tions governing out-of- province field trips were drafted to try and ensure educational merit of any such trip. . Policy regulations state that each EPC should have balanced representation from both staff and parents and will be expected to send representatives to discuss any proposed excursion with was time something was done one way or the other. Klaus Spiekermann, prin- cipal of North Vancouver’s Queen Mary Community School and a resident of Bowen Island for the past 10° years, said the issue was much farger than just mov- ing students into one district: “The real agenda is for West Vancouver municipality to absorb Bowen Island and make it a stburb.: What’s really at ‘stake is the development of the island.” Edgar. « Carlin, superin- tendent ‘of schools in West Vancouver, said Wednesday he could not confirm whether Bowen Island had indeed been officially moved into District 457 ‘Bowen Islaiud’s move into District 45-would come into ‘effect July i, 1986. the West Vancouver school board. Approval for such excursions, according to the policies, should be sought “fat least six months prior to the proposed excursion date.”” The board also drafted an eight-page, 29-question planning document to be filled out by EPCs for the board’s pre-approval perus- al. Edgar Carlin, superin- tendent of schools for West Vancouver, said the propos- ed policies were drafted with the intent of decentralizing the field trip decision- mak- ing process. But Arnie Smith, principal of Westcot Elementary, voiced his concern over the feasibility of the six-month lead time for short out-ol- province trips. **To project six months in advance for a half-day trip to Seattle would just not be practical.” See Onus Page 5