The Cowichan Valley school district is moving forward with a solution to its mouldy A.B. Greenwell School woes.

Board trustees voted last Wednesday night to develop a business plan “for the replacement of A.B. Greenwell school with a new, single kindergarten to Grade 5 facility in the community of Lake Cowichan.”

This new school would house students from Palsson Elementary School as well as A.B. Greenwell, which was closed early this year due to mould.

“It’s a step forward,” said trustee Julie Thomas.

The recommendation for the replacement school came from senior administration, who said the recommendation was based on an educational perspective.

Administration prepared a document outlining the educational advantages of building a new, single replacement school, which includes more teachers at each grade level, but as trustee Diana Gunderson pointed out, there are disadvantages to the recommendation as well, like the loss of another public school: Palsson.

“There’s a pride in schools up there,” she said, adding this pride is coupled with a fear of losing more of them.

Gunderson, along with trustee Eden Haythornthwaite, voted against the development of the business plan.

Superintendent of schools, Dan Boudreault, said the next steps are a facilities audit followed by the completion of the business plan. He said he hopes to see the plan finished by December and then submitted to the Ministry of Education.

“I’d like the community to see it before it’s submitted,” Gunderson added.

Denise Lawler, chair of the A.B. Greenwell School Parent Advisory Council, said this proposed plan would probably work for most of the parents at her school.

“Most of my parents support a new school, whether it’s just for A.B. Greenwell or for all the elementary students,” she said, noting that for many of them it isn’t acceptable to go back into the old school if it’s just repaired.

The chair of the Palsson PAC, Jodi McKenzie, though, is angry about the decision..

“Honestly, I don’t really know what to say,” she said Saturday. “I think the board succeeded in splitting the parents from the two schools.”

McKenzie said that at a Lake Cowichan Ratepayers’ Association meeting in late June, a show of hands from about 60 parents and other community members clearly showed support for repairing A.B. Greenwell School, using $1.2 million the school district already has for gymnasium repairs and adding it to the total $5.2 million cost.

Rod Peters, chair of the Lake Cowichan Ratepayers’ Association, said he doesn’t trust the school board and questions whether there will ever be a new school built.

“They’re just trying to postpone the fixing of A.B. Greenwell by saying they’ll build a new school,” said Peters. “I don’t think they’ll ever build a new school here. They want to move the high school kids to Duncan and put all the rest in the high school.”

With a file from Doug Marner