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Closing Britannia Secondary Will Hit Indigenous Students Hard, Say Community Members

School with highest Aboriginal-identified population could shutter by next June.

Katie Hyslop 24 Jun 2016TheTyee.ca

Katie Hyslop is The Tyee's education and youth reporter.

Katie's work is supported by ongoing contributions from Tyee Builders and a matching contribution from Vancouver Foundation. Individual Tyee Builders and other supporters neither influence nor endorse the particular content of the reporting. Other publications wishing to publish Katie's work should contact Tyee Solutions editor Chris Wood at cwood[at]thetyee.ca.

The possible closure of 12 Vancouver schools by next June announced earlier this week will impact over 3,000 students, the majority on the city's east side.

But it's the possibility of shuttering Britannia Secondary School, in particular, that's concerning Vancouver's urban Aboriginal community.

The city's 17 other high schools typically enroll a dozen or fewer indigenous students each. But Britannia enrolls 180 to 190 Aboriginal students every year, one-third of the 577 students it had this year.

Part of a complex on the north end of Commercial Drive that includes Britannia Elementary, a public library, and a community centre, Britannia Secondary been an integral part of Vancouver's largest urban Aboriginal community for decades, said Scott Clark, executive director of Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement Society, better known as ALIVE.

For a population made vulnerable by systemic racism, colonialism, and poverty, Britannia's loss will hit hard. "A lot of people are reeling [from] this right now," he said. If Britannia closes, "it's going to have a profound impact."

'Proving successful'

One reason Britannia has such a high Aboriginal population is because it sits in the heart of Vancouver's urban Aboriginal community. "Historically the land on the east side was the cheapest land, and that's where they built a lot of the social housing in that particular area," Clark said.

Several Aboriginal students enrolled today are kids and grandkids of Britannia alum, many of whom make frequent use of the services provided by the complex, ranging from health and fitness to cultural and educational supports.

The high school is also close to both the Urban Native Youth Association and Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society near the intersection of East Hastings Street and Commercial Drive.

"Obviously if it has the highest Aboriginal student population, the parents and children like what they are doing," said Susan Tatoosh, executive director of the Friendship Centre Society. "Their programming is accommodating the students' educational choices and proving successful."

Britannia boasts several alternative programs, including Outreach, which is directed solely at indigenous students who want more support, cultural content, and a smaller class size.

There's also Britannia's new Aboriginal carving pavilion, a beautiful wooden enclosure situated in the parking lot for students to learn and practice indigenous arts.

Seventy-nine of Britannia's 189 Aboriginal-identified students enrolled as of September 2015 came from outside its catchment area, some even travelling from other school districts.

'I'm quite sad': Britannia student

For Lorna Williams, former First Nations education specialist with the Vancouver School Board and indigenous education professor emeritus at the University of Victoria, it's more than programs and cultural content that attracts indigenous students to Britannia.

"Often times secondary schools are set apart, they're isolated from the community, there's not a sense of belonging. I've been talking to students who are here and I'm asking them, 'Why, when you've been everywhere else, you've dropped out of school, you've skipped school -- why do you stay in school when you come here?'" said Williams.

"It's because they feel that there's a sense of belonging, they feel that they have people who care about them and their learning, and are willing to do something about it. And they don't feel that kind of support in other settings."

The Tyee spoke to several indigenous students outside Britannia on June 21, the last day of the school, about how they felt about the possible closure. One Grade 9 student, Aiden, said he was "quite sad" and that he'd "made a lot of friends here."

Another, Lyle, is enrolled in Streetfront, an alternate program at Britannia that combines learning with physical fitness. The program will move to another school if Britannia closes, but Lyle said the closure would hit the northeast side hard and will mean families moving elsewhere. "Lots of kids around here have a past and history with their parents coming here," he said.

But for Joey, who's going into Grade 9 next year, closing Britannia won't be such a big deal. "My other home school is Templeton," he said, adding he lives between the two schools. Templeton Secondary is a 10-minute walk from Britannia.

Supports attached to students, not schools: principal

Britannia's closure is by no means a done deal. The list of 12 schools for possible closure by the end of the 2016/17 school year -- one school, Admiral Seymour Elementary, is recommended to remain open until June 2018 -- was created by the district superintendent's office to help reach the 95 per cent average district classroom capacity goal outlined in a memorandum of understanding the district has with the province for seismic upgrading funds.

Currently, 69 seismically high-risk schools in the district have no upgrading plans in place, an issue the MOU is supposed to address.

The list of schools to close hasn't been reviewed by the Vancouver School Board yet, said board chair Mike Lombardi. And it won't be until district staff release a comprehensive report in September examining where students will go, the composition of each school community, what student supports are needed where, and more.

"Once the board reviews that report, we'll make a decision about whether or not any of those schools stay on the list," Lombardi said. "And if any of those schools do stay on the list after September, then we will have a community consultation process."

Even if Britannia does close, the programs and supports provided to Aboriginal students won't be lost, said Don Fiddler, district principal of Aboriginal education.

"It's not related to Britannia, as such, it's related to where [students] are," he said, adding there are almost 90 Aboriginal-identified secondary students in alternate programs district-wide. "Our educational program follows the student. We deliver the same level of student service regardless of where the students are."

The superintendent's report suggest Britannia students could attend Templeton Secondary. If everyone moves, Templeton would boast over 240 Aboriginal-identified students.

But Williams said many students she knows at one of Britannia's alternate programs came there from Templeton Secondary. "They were dropping out of school there because they didn't feel that same sense of belonging and connectedness" at Templeton, she said.  [Tyee]

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