The Vancouver school district’s heritage liaison committee is expected to meet before spring break to discuss the fate of the yellow schoolhouse at General Gordon elementary.
The meeting was agreed upon at a VSB committee meeting Wednesday night, according to Anne Guthrie-Warman, who spoke at the meeting on behalf of the Heritage Vancouver Society.
School board staff had recommended the heritage schoolhouse be demolished after the district tried but failed to find an organization to lease and repair the building, which is more than 100 years old.
An independent Montessori group had planned to take it over but later withdrew its proposal.
Guthrie-Warman said the VSB’s heritage liaison committee should have had the chance to meet and discuss the failed bid, but that step was missed.
The heritage liaison committee is chaired by Jim Meschino, the district’s director of facilities, and includes representatives from Heritage Vancouver, Heritage B.C. and the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.
Guthrie-Warman said she isn’t sure if Dianne Turner, the VSB's government-appointed official trustee, will be at the upcoming meeting but that it’s possible.
“The discussion, I hope, will try to untangle what went wrong with the Montessori bid, and will consider other prospective tenants, some of whom have already expressed interest,” she said.
Guthrie-Warman maintains it’s important that heritage groups and the board “consider not just the immediate and current but the long view and the historic and heritage context,” of the building before making a decision.
She worries other West Side schools such as Bayview elementary will be lost because they need seismic upgrading and it's cheaper to knock down schools rather than repair them, so it's all the more important to preserve the yellow schoolhouse.
"It's a simple save, it seems to me, and a reasonable save. There's a strong sense we need to fight for this one," she said.
While most of the delegations at Wednesday’s VSB meeting spoke in favour of preserving the building, the parent group thinks the school community should be consulted before the district commits to any particular usage. It had already told the VSB that the schoolhouse or the space where it sits should be used for General Gordon students.
"In the absence of an acceptable proposal to use the outbuilding, we are in favour of demolition and construction of more playground and green space," the parent group states on the school website.
The Vancouver School Board hadn't responded to questions by the time this story was posted.
@naoibh
