The following was sent to us by Vancouver School Trustee Sharon Gregson.

My name is Karen Georgi and this (members.shaw.ca/stopbcschoolclosures/) is a link to my website and petition. Please have a look and help me to circulate this petition Province wide. There is also a Facebook group "stopbcschoolclosures" to help circulate the petition.

I am a parent with two children in public school and started to become interested in the issue of Functional Capacity during our school district's (SD42) school closure process back in September 2007. At this time there were information sessions which welcomed public feedback. Over and over again members of the public asked why classrooms that were utilized by daycares, sensory rooms and other community uses didn't "count" when calculating functional capacity. There are programs the government has implemented such as strong start and this too cannot be factored in. A school can have every classroom utilized and it's official functional capacity could be 75 or 80%. I feel that changing the determination for what constitutes the functional capacity of our schools will help to keep schools open. Please feel free to call me or email if you have any questions.

Karen Georgi

19559 115 Avenue

Pitt Meadows

604-465-0612