Nelson parent Camara Cassin believes she’s witnessing the decay of the public school system firsthand — her high school aged daughter is waitlisted for the only school in town, L.V. Rogers, and she’s received no assurances that she will actually have a desk for the school year.
“She’s been on the wait list since April and since then I’ve been trying to get information on whether or not she will be able to attend,” Cassin wrote in an impassioned Facebook post on Tuesday morning.
“Recently I was informed I needed to call the school the last week of August to find out what to do. So I phoned. I was then told that no one would know if the wait listed students will get in until after the first week of school is over.”
As far as she’s concerned, “that is unacceptable and illogical.”
So she took her daughter down to the high school to meet with L.V. Rogers principal Tamara Malloff, who according to Cassin, “informed me quite bluntly ‘there’s nothing I can do, my hands are tied’.” Regardless, she took her daughter to a school-wide assembly that she hadn’t been invited to.
“It was very interesting that the wait-listed students were not invited to this assembly. Why can’t they be included? Why can’t they be connected? Is this information not important to them also?”
But what floored her during the proceedings was learning there are 50 international students who are attending L.V. Rogers this year. She feels these students, which SD8 charges $12,000 per head, are taking her daughter’s spot.
“My daughter is waitlisted for her Grade A education at the only high school in town because the seats have been sold to the highest bidders…I am disgusted with our district and our provincial government,” said Cassin.
Cassin’s post received over 110 shares Tuesday morning, with many parents commenting about their own educational woes.
The Star reached out to Malloff and Superintendent Jeff Jones, but were unable to get a comment before our print deadline.
The Kootenay Lake School District is still reeling from news, announced this summer, that four schools will be closing locally. Cassin believes under-funding of education by the provincial government is to blame for the situation she’s in.
“The reason they want international students is they don’t have enough money to run their school. The root cause is funding. We have to take this to the government and make a big stink.”
Cassin doesn’t know what else to do.
“I’m worried about my daughter falling behind. She’s not going to have a locker. She’s definitely not going to get into the classes she wants.
“And she’s not making those social connections, finding her place. Where is she supposed to go? What is she supposed to do?”