Sooke School District chair Ravi Parmar and Mayor Maja Tait met yesterday to discuss the future of education in Sooke.
The purpose of the meeting was to “open the doors of conversation” and to build a strong relationship between council and the school board.
“We chatted about some of the projects on the go, the future of Sooke and where the growth is, how we start planning for possibilities of an addition to EMCS, and the expansion of new schools in the area,” Parmar said.
Tait said it was a perfect time to talk with Parmar, following her meeting with Premier John Horgan last week.
“We wanted to find ways on how we can better share information about our growing population, how our schools are doing, and where our needs are,” Tait said.
“I know several of our schools are hitting capacity or are about to, and obviously school expansion would require land. Though the municipality doesn’t own a lot of land, we will be looking at how we can support each other and plan for the growth.”
Parmar agreed, saying Sooke is growing just like Langford and Colwood, so he and Tait wanted to share updates on what the school district and council have been working on lately. He added that the school district plans to share its five year strategic plan with council in the coming months.
“Maja is a certainly a great advocate for her community, and it was great to get her perspective on some of the things that Sooke council and the district are looking at doing in the future,” he said.
“It was meant to be the start of more regular conversations, and to create more opportunities to collaborate moving forward.”
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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