While the current location of Willowstone Academy has been purchased by Kelowna Christian School, a group of parents is fighting to keep the private, Christian school alive. Last week, Kelowna Christian School announced that it has purchased the First Lutheran Church and Willowstone Academy property at 4091 Lakeshore Road, and the current Willowstone location will become Kelowna Christian School’s third campus. As part of the deal, Willowstone will cease operations at its current location after June 2023. First Lutheran Church will continue to operate at its existing location. But while KCS has said it will provide “priority admission” to former Willowstone students, a group of parents are hoping to move Willowstone to a new location. “When we found out the school was probably closing, there was a group of parents who said what if there was a different solution?” said Alexandra Krieger, one of the Willowstone parents working to save the school. Krieger says the group has received the blessing from the Willowstone board to explore finding a new site for the school. “There are still steps to give us a final blessing in an official way, obviously the legal steps,” Kreiger said. “That still needs to be resolved, but they have given us the blessing to explore the opportunity at this time and come back with the plan. And all of this is moving extremely fast. “We want to make sure we respect the process. And we also respect every concern [the board] I have. So we have an opportunity to process all of that right now.” The school offers Christian education from infant/toddler age through 9th grade, and approximately 230 students are enrolled there. Last month, Willowstone board chairman Ross Langford announced the school was in an “unsustainable and bleak financial position”, due to rising rent and running costs and declining enrolments. Krieger says that while they can’t yet release details about their plans, they will try to rethink Willowstone Academy to make it more financially viable. “There’s a different path forward, and partly that Willowstone’s path forward is on its own,” says Krieger. “With the understanding that there will always be a friendship … we want to always honor the legacy of what First Lutheran Church has given us by starting the school in the first place. We never want this story to be lost.” Krieger hopes to host a town hall meeting to update Willowstone parents about their work in the next couple of weeks. “Registration usually starts around January, February, for September [2023] school year,” he said. “So we want to make sure that by the time we get to that date, we can at least be further ahead than we are now, providing some clarity to parents, to say come on the journey with us.” He said their top priority is to open Willowstone for the 2023/24 school year. “Willowstone is a very special school community,” she said. “I love school because my daughter Katrin loves school. “When news broke of this potential sale to KCS, there were many tears in our house that night. But that night, [Catherine] he asked me, “Isn’t there a chance I have Willowstone somewhere else?” And I said, ‘Yeah, I think so.’”
