Students from Port Renfrew Elementary — tuning in remotely from the coastal community 75 kilometres northwest of Sooke — cheered Tuesday afternoon as close to $12 million in funding was announced for a replacement school.
The current 1970-vintage kindergarten-Grade 5 school has 14 students and is considered one of the most seismically unsafe schools in the province.The children in Port Renfrew deserve a good future “and the new school will do that for them,” said Daniels, who thanked her predecessor, Jeff Jones, and others in the First Nation who worked to make the school a reality.
The nation has been involved in the design of the new school and in setting its curriculum, said Langford-Juan de Fuca MLA Ravi Parmar, a former chair of the Sooke School Board. Current board chair Amanda Dowhy said that collaboration with the Pacheedaht has been instrumental in getting the school funded, “and we look forward to furthering our partnership as the school project progresses from plans to reality.”