Editor:
I support B.C. public school teachers seeking the contract they feel most justifies their service, but there is a distortion, I feel, in Susan Telfer’s letter (“Why teachers are on the picket line,” Coast Reporter, June 27).
Ms. Telfer writes about “private schools for the rich, and under-funded, overcrowded public schools for the rest,” and she re-circulates a comment asserting that independent schools turn away kids.
I’m sorry, Susan, it’s just not true that independent schools serve only wealthy clients and cherry-pick students. I know, I co-founded an online independent school, SelfDesign, in 2002 that now enrols close to 2,000 kids province-wide.
SelfDesign, like many other independent schools, doesn’t charge tuition, but offers a viable educational choice to parents and kids. And as for turning kids away, well, again the truth is that my school, like many other independent schools, actually provides a welcome place for kids being bounced out of public schools. Talking to parents will verify this.
As for the funding issue, independent schools receive either 50 per cent or much less than the going rate that public schools receive. In other words, you don’t have to pass Grade 12 math to see that independent schools save B.C. taxpayers a whack of money, and in so doing enable government to return the saved money to public schools — which is precisely what happens.
That a win-win scenario in my books.
