News

Parents' Pleas Win the Day: No Vancouver Schools to Close

Rather than shut schools to save money, district may expand their uses, including for daycare.

By Katie Hyslop, 6 Dec 2010, TheTyee.ca

bacchus

VSB chair Patti Bacchus: 'We heard very clearly from our community.'

Text size:

Rate this:

Login/Register

Related

To the relief of many parents, the report from the Vancouver School Board's superintendent recommends the board hold off on closing any schools until March 2012. But although three Vision Vancouver trustees support this move, others are eyeing the decision with suspicion over what will be cut instead.

The Administrative Report: Public Consultation on School Closures and Recommendations to the Vancouver Board of Education, compiled by Superintendent Steve Cardwell and district staff, recommends the Vancouver School Board (VSB) not only keep all of its schools open for over a year, but use the extra space in schools for daycares and other community services.

The report's release coincided with a press conference held by three Vision Vancouver trustees who reached a similar conclusion after the school closure consultations, but wanted to wait for the report's release before they made their announcement.

"We heard very clearly from our community, our parents, our students, that school closures are not the answer to the financial challenges that we're currently facing," Patti Bacchus, chair of the VSB, told the media during a press conference earlier today. Fellow Vision trustees Ken Clement and Mike Lombardi were in attendance, but Vision Trustee Sharon Gregson was not because of conflict of interest with her employer.

"We have listened very hard, we considered the feedback, and we will be going forward voting not to close those schools."

The board needs to cut over $17 million from its budget and was considering the closure of five schools in the city's east end: Carleton Elementary, Champlain Heights Annex, MacDonald Elementary, McBride Annex, and Queen Alexandra Elementary.

If we don't cut there, then where?

Despite the support of three trustees and the superintendent, the report still has to be voted on by the rest of the board on Dec. 14 before the decision is final. Though he does not yet know how he will vote, NPA Trustee Ken Denike is disappointed with the report, saying it does not address the issues of operating half-empty schools and others that are overcrowded.

"I think it's a very poor management decision on the part of the staff to bring that set of recommendations forward," he told The Tyee. "Where are they going to do the cuts then? Where is their priority to do the cuts? Is it cutting teachers and support staff and programs in other parts of the city?"

Bacchus says the trustees were honest with parents that if schools weren't closed, programs may have to be cut. She said school closures could also be looked at again as early as next spring, when she predicts they will need to cut another $10 million from their budget.

"Despite our very bleak power points explaining the kinds of financial predicaments that we're in -- they were pretty gloomy meetings -- the voice that came back very strongly is 'it doesn't matter, don't close the schools, there are too many costs associated with that beyond just what's on your budget pages'," she says, adding a predicted enrolment increase in the future, in addition to the introduction of the pre-kindergarten program in the next few years, means they will need these schools.

"If we close the space down now, we're in a position of having to open it again in a couple of years. We could actually be financially further behind than if we close now."

Both the Vision trustees and the superintendent's report recommend the City of Vancouver and the VSB work together to provide community programming in school spaces, especially childcare spaces, which they are considering offering at no cost to the provider.

"We are one of the largest providers of space for childcare supports, we do rent out space, but one of the issues we hear from the providers is it's very hard financially for some of these daycares to survive," says Bacchus.

"(The City) supports many other programs and agencies that rent space in other buildings that may be possible to consider moving in. We're also going to look at the potential for shared services."

More funding still needed

Despite past tensions, Bacchus says the board is also eager to work with the provincial government. In the brief period of time George Abbott held the ministry, Bacchus says he agreed that more clarity was required on the future of the pre-kindergarten program, which she says the board had continually asked of Margaret MacDiarmid when she was minister. Now that MacDiarmid is back, Bacchus says she is looking to work with the government in planning for the future, but also for more funding.

For her part, MacDiarmid says the decision to close schools or not is a local one, but the cost of operating schools not running at capacity can be prohibitively high, and she worries the quality of education will suffer if cuts are made to programs instead. She denies, however, that the government needs to increase funding for education.

"If you look at what the province has been able to do, we've increased funding every single year. Not only did we increase funding this year, but we've also started up full day kindergarten, which really has gone just fabulously well," she told The Tyee.

"But we can't do everything, there's only one taxpayer, and for every further dollar we put into education, it's either increase taxes for somebody, or it's a service we want to provide somewhere else. So we've tried to take a balanced approach and increase funding, but there's a level beyond which we can't go at this point."

'We got $600 million for BC Place'

The Alliance of Parents and Partners to Lobby for Education in British Columbia, or APPLE BC, held their own mini-press conference after Vision, where they disagreed with MacDiarmid's stance on funding. They argue 191 schools have been closed in B.C. since the Liberals came to power, and by the 2012-13 school year, the Vancouver district alone will have accrued a $90 million budget shortfall under their leadership.

"This has to be front and centre for the B.C. Liberal leadership debates. We have between now and February to get them to change Campbell's budget and Campbell's cuts to our most vulnerable children," says APPLE BC member Scott Clark.

"We got $600 million for B.C. Place. We've got untold millions of dollars for roads and transportation. If the government makes it a priority, which is our children and our future, then they can find the money." [Tyee]

Katie Hyslop reports on education for the Tyee Solutions Society, and is a freelance reporter for a number of other outlets including The Tyee. To republish this piece, please contact the Michelle Hoar.

13 Comments:

Login or register to post comments

  • cboo44

    1 year ago

    School Closures

    It never ceases to amaze me that parents and school trustees continue to be completely self-centred and myopic. How they can "blame" any government, at any level, for the continuing drop in enrollment is a mystery. What is it about this very basic FACT that people just can't understand? School enrollment is NOT increasing, especially in Vancouver. It is the same situation throughout BC. Rural schoolsare emptying and being closed. Students that previously were in a rural area school are now riding a bus for 1.5 hours-2 hours per day. And some yuppy, self-indulgent parent in Vancouver is outraged that closing a half-empty school will increase their commute by 20 minutes? And they want the taxpayers of BC to pay to fix it for them, because they THINK somehow, this situation is like roads and transportation throughout BC, or even the Lower Mainland ? The VSB, like their parents has chosen to totally ignore dropping enrollment and the ever-increasing maintenance costs of near 100 yr old schools. WHEN does "reality" set in? When an empty school filled with only teachers and administrators, drinking tea and playing patty-cake, collapses from neglect ?

  • morechatter

    1 year ago

    Chicken one day feathers the next

    I don't know about you but there is little that adds up when it comes to the education system. If anything BC kids should learn is don't trust Politicians making big promises of great wealth and prosperity because before you know it your school will be long gone just like your health care.

  • morechatter

    1 year ago

    Public Education = Drop Out Factories

    The Liberals decided to scatter funding and give to the wealthiest schools. While the public system breaks down do to all the cuts making public schools and education a thing of the past.
    Campbell dosen't like government or the nasty little poor so it makes common sense to break the entire system down. The poor little school house returns as drop outs factories make way for slaves who work at dead end jobs without fair compensation because the minimum wage earners are compared to BCs mentally impaired because how stupid can you get when going with public education? Public education = retarded

  • Fish-counter

    1 year ago

    I agree with cboo44. School closures are inevitable

    We live in an era of rights and entitlements, where the image of a mother holding a baby rules all. When Mothers weep over the closure of their local school, I can share their grief but they are wasting their tears. We simply cannot afford to run half-empty schools. The fact that in recent history, population growth has supported a growing healthy education industry - for that is what it is - does't mean it will always be so.

    I feel sorry for teachers. They have come to expect a job for life and they are realising it just ain't so any more. Welcome to the real world!

    The education industry is built on:

    1. Public funding
    2. Powerful teacher's unions
    3. Legal enforcement. Kids must go to school

    If there were actually a choice, most parents would probably prefer to home school or private schooling. Teachers have built a nice, comfortable work environment for themselves, and they are extremely well paid for what tey do. Schools are organised for the benefit of the teachers, not the students, and hopsitals are run for the benefit if the staff, not the patients.

    It is a nice trick, but it can't last forever.

  • jnewcomb

    1 year ago

    rent out to private schools - make more money!

    Day care rental sounds weak - the schools'designs aren't really optimal for that use, nor is the location of schools necessarily very well planned for day cares.

    HOWEVER - renting out the school buildings for private schooling classrooms makes much more sense. Private schools, parochial schools, ethnic schools - all should be explored as better money-makers than day care centres.

  • Dethe

    1 year ago

    Not yuppies

    @cboo44:

    Regardless of whether this is a good decision or not, this is not about "yuppie, self-indulgent parents." These are East-Side schools, and the parents and community have argued that the schools are central to the fabric of the community. There is more at stake than increased commute time.

    The west-side schools that may fit your stereotype better are threatened by program cuts and possible shutdown of some of the Mini-School programs (some of the most successful programs in the city, in terms of educational outcomes), but no-one was discussing shutting down the rich kids' schools.

  • poetryonearth

    1 year ago

    investment in human potential

    I applaud this decision to invest in children. It is truly the best and most rational investment, from an economic and social policy standpoint.

    Now onto filling the leadership void at the provincial and federal levels. All fence sitters and arm chair pundits, get out there and create a prosperity creation strategy that starts with a national and provincial housing strategy (affordable housing) and children/youth & family strategy that hands out attachment science dvds to business leaders, policy makers, educators, high school students and the parents of every positive pregnancy test.

    Carol James was doing her job well, was bullied out by people that just shot themselves in the foot if they ever, ever had hopes of replacing the provincial Liberals. I hope she gets her leadership position back, with an apology!

  • Eimaj7

    1 year ago

    Not All Black and White

    People are making comments without all the facts. While I agree that school closures may be inevidable, considering the declining enrollment, the decision to close certain schools may have been misguided. For example, one school (McBride Annex) was operating at full capacity in the recent past. However, an entire city block full of rental units was recently demolished, which resulted in a corresponding decline in enrollment. 243 brand new condos and rental units are currently being built in their place and will be finished in the next several months (about 50% complete). Many of these are 2 and 3 bedroom units. The School Board claimed that this will only increase the enrollement by 10 students (when it could be 40 or more). This is only a 6 classroom school, so this difference alone means the difference between being closed or not.

    The financial reasoning isn’t the soundest either. The school closure would result in $170K savings of the $17,000,000 short fall (1%). At that rate, they’d have to close 100 schools. Even the $170K is suspect, because they only have $5,000 per year for security – which could dramatically increase in the event of vandalism to the boarded up school.

  • Eimaj7

    1 year ago

    Daycare A Good Idea

    Using any spare space for daycare is the way to go. I recently moved to Vancouver, and couldn’t find any daycares without a 1-2 year waiting list. What are you suppose to do, when you need 2 incomes to afford a house here. The City has recently had to relax some of prerequisites for daycare buildings because of the shortage of space. Elementary schools are designed for small people. They are close to parks and/or have playgrounds. Many have been seismically upgraded. They are in the neighbourhood, so the kids & family meet and make friends with their neighbours. Also the transition from daycare to kindergarten (or junior kindergarten) would be easy for the kids within the same building.

    The reality of the East Van schools is there are often enough students to fill them. East Van attracts new families due to the lower cost of housing, compared to the rest of Vancouver. However, parents have the misimpression that the local schools are not as good as other schools (private, Montessori, or out-of-catchment), so they don’t send their kids there. By introducing the families to the school at the daycare stage, parents may choose to keep their kids there once the kindergarten starts. The VSB needs to market themselves better and implement innovative programmes in order to retain their students (as the funding is proportional).

  • Chris H

    1 year ago

    Funding levels

    It would take $3.74 billion province wide to bring public education funding back up to 1991-92 ratios. Additionally, As a % of the province's budget, we've gone from 26.36% in 1991-92, to 19.67% in 2001-02, to 15.34% in 2009-10.

    More money into the system? They aren't even keeping up with inflation!

  • worried

    1 year ago

    Wait a go, Patti

    Wait a go, Patti Bacchus!!!!! It's discouraging the way we sit back and let Gordo and his gang throw money at the B.C. Place roof, pay our privatized ferry systems's CEO a
    million bucks a year, and give poor struggling banks like TD Canada Trust huge tax cuts, and then claim there's just no money for schools. What happened to the billion dollars they got when they illegally sold B.C. Rail? What happened to all the money they raked in during our "booming economy?" Funding was never put back into schools, libraries, parks, etc. But Private Schools got more funding, daycares lost subsidies, tuition fees have tripled...So I don't trust this government when they say there's no money. They shut down daycares, school art and athletic programs and then decide to fund full day kindergarten at huge expense and with no substantial data that says it improves learning outcomes (See Finland-highest scores in world, kids don't get reading instruction until 6-7). This government is out to cripple public systems by slowing eroding funding and then blaming it on the incompetency of the people who work within the institutions.

  • Spiritlifter

    1 year ago

    Class war

    Plenty of money for everything but education. I think a human being like Carole James would have listened closely to a topic like this one. Right now we (the people) have NO leadership in Gov't or opposition. Is this what BC families want? 90 million dollar shortfalls don't just appear, they build up slowly from neglect. Vancouver, for example, is becomming more and more an "executive class" city - this was planned long ago. Pushing the middle class over the Tarquin Rock is par for the course - Gordy (Bilderburg) Campbell was just the executioner in a much larger operation.

  • cboo44

    1 year ago

    Dethe

    "Yuppiedom" is not geographic.It's an attitude of entitlement.

    • The discussion for this story is closed. No more comments can be added.