Marking 20 years
of bold journalism,
reader supported.
News

BC’s Rural School Strategy Off to a Rocky Start

‘I want to know what the purpose of this is,’ says skeptical Kootenay Lake district chair.

Katie Hyslop 17 Jan 2017TheTyee.ca

Katie Hyslop is The Tyee’s education and youth reporter. Find her previous stories here.

School trustees outside B.C.’s cities are welcoming a government review of rural-urban education, but concerned about the project’s rollout and the failure to address key issues like underfunding.

Southeast Kootenay board chair Frank Lento says the consultation, aimed at developing a rural schools strategy, appears to be rushed, making it hard for rural boards to participate.

And he’s concerned the government may have a favoured outcome.

“I want to know what the purpose of this is,” said Lento in a phone interview. “Ultimately somebody has an agenda and they want to pursue it — I don’t know what it is.”

After a last-minute injection of government cash helped avoid the closure of seven rural schools last June, Premier Christy Clark tasked parliamentary secretary for rural education Linda Larson and parliamentary secretary for rural development Donna Barnett with developing a rural school strategy.

Lento says the project is off to a rocky start. The government launched a consultation with trustees and the public on Nov. 21, offering the chance to participate online or by mail.

But the Southeast Kootenays trustees didn’t find out about the consultation until Dec. 13, one week before the district closed for a two-week Christmas break and less than a month before the Jan. 9 submissions deadline.

Lento says he scrambled to call a special trustee working session on Jan. 3 to meet the deadline.

The Southeast Kootenay board also took issue with the consultation “discussion prompts,” finding they seemed designed to encourage responses focusing on the positive aspects of rural education. The consultation document asked about definitions for rural and remote schools, discussion of their roles in communities and invited participants to “share your rural education story.”

What’s also needed is a focus on the real challenges of running a rural school, like slower Internet, smaller populations, higher transit costs, and fewer available resources, particularly for Indigenous education, says Lento.

“Why was there no discussion question on funding of rural/remote schools/districts?” the district asked in its feedback to government. “Why was there no discussion question on challenges experienced by rural/remote schools/districts?” (The full response is available here.)

Jeff Fields, vice-chair of the Vancouver Island North school board, had similar difficulties sharing feedback.

The tight consultation deadlines made it impossible for trustees to come together from far-flung locations on the island and B.C.’s central coast before Jan. 9, so they submitted individual responses to government, he said.

Even in Port Hardy, the largest community in the 22,000-square-kilometre district, submitting feedback online was a challenge. “My Internet provider up here’s so damn slow, it took me many, many tries before I could actually do the survey.”

Faster Internet would enable the district to offer their high school students a broader range of courses through distance education, says Field. “We lose [students] to Campbell River and Courtney, because they have more to offer.”

Port Hardy will soon have fibre optic Internet, a much faster connection. But Field doesn’t know whether the rest of his district, which includes remote fly-in communities, has or will soon have fibre optic.

‘No appreciation for the magnitude of the job’: Lento

Slow Internet is one of many challenges shared by the two districts, along with lengthy commute times, lack of resources and difficulty attracting and retaining skilled teachers. Funding is another.

Both districts have closed six schools each since 2002, which Lento blames on the current per-student funding model. In its feedback to government, Lento’s board highlighted closures and the threat of closures as a source of constant anxiety among rural communities.

The Ministry of Education denied The Tyee’s request to interview rural education secretary Linda Larson. In an emailed statement, the ministry maintained that districts received advanced notice of the consultation process on Nov. 9, two weeks before they began accepting online or mail in submissions on Nov. 21.

While over 270 feedback submissions were made by Jan. 9, the deadline has been extended to Jan. 31, thanks to an “administrative hiccup” over notifications, says BC School Trustees’ Association president Teresa Rezansoff. However, the second phase of consultation, nine regional meetings between the public and Larson or Education Ministry staff, begins five days before the new deadline on Jan. 26.

Notice of the deadline extension came too late for Southeast Kooetnay trustees, who had scrambled to complete a rushed response by the original deadline. It shows “just no appreciation for the magnitude of the job that [school trustees] have,” says Lento.

Rezansoff sits on the government-appointed rural schools working group, and will review feedback with Larson to create a discussion paper for the second phase of the project.

Lento notes the closest regional meeting to his district will be in Trail, a three-and-a-half-hour drive away. Despite the limited numbers of meetings, Rezansoff says the BCSTA and the working group are working on expanding access.

The working group is considering online meetings or phone discussions, she said.

Second rural review under Clark

The final report outlining the strategy is expected by the end of this school year.

Rezansoff says BC School Trustees’ Association members have been “asking for this kind of review and look at rural education to happen for a while.”

But this isn’t the first time the province — or Christy Clark — has asked for a closer look at rural schools.

Forty-four schools closed in Clark’s first year as education minister in 2002 — 43 of them in rural locations.

Clark then established a rural education task force mandated with reviewing the state of rural education and identifying best practices. The ultimate goal was a rural education strategy.

The task force’s final report, submitted to Clark in 2003, highlighted many of the same cost pressure issues on rural and remote districts that Southeast Kootenay trustees identified in their feedback to government 14 years later, including the cost of transportation in remote locations, declining enrolment, poor access to technology and the small populations of rural communities.

But a strategy was never developed.

When asked how the 2017 report would differ from the 2003 report, a ministry spokesperson said “a fresh look was needed in light of the unique challenges rural communities face.”

Challenges like declining enrolment, dwindling community size, remote locations, and harsh climates — all of which are covered in the 2003 report.

Fourteen years later, the problems remain and Southeast Kootenay trustees told the government the threat of school closures is a continuing stress on rural communities and undermines confidence in the future of public education.

“This ongoing anxiety, and the exponential increase, by percentage, of funding to private schools, continues to foster diminishing faith in the provincial government’s commitment to public education in general, and rural/remote schools in particular,” the response said.

“It is the view of our Board and our communities that equal access to services, such as public education, are the responsibility of government based on the rights of the individual and not the location from which they derive their livelihood and/or choose to raise their families.”

Lento says he isn’t expecting government to respond. Instead, he expects to find answers in the final report Larson produces before the end of this school year.  [Tyee]

  • Share:

Facts matter. Get The Tyee's in-depth journalism delivered to your inbox for free

Tyee Commenting Guidelines

Comments that violate guidelines risk being deleted, and violations may result in a temporary or permanent user ban. Maintain the spirit of good conversation to stay in the discussion.
*Please note The Tyee is not a forum for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, denying its existence or minimizing its risk to public health.

Do:

  • Be thoughtful about how your words may affect the communities you are addressing. Language matters
  • Challenge arguments, not commenters
  • Flag trolls and guideline violations
  • Treat all with respect and curiosity, learn from differences of opinion
  • Verify facts, debunk rumours, point out logical fallacies
  • Add context and background
  • Note typos and reporting blind spots
  • Stay on topic

Do not:

  • Use sexist, classist, racist, homophobic or transphobic language
  • Ridicule, misgender, bully, threaten, name call, troll or wish harm on others
  • Personally attack authors or contributors
  • Spread misinformation or perpetuate conspiracies
  • Libel, defame or publish falsehoods
  • Attempt to guess other commenters’ real-life identities
  • Post links without providing context

LATEST STORIES

The Barometer

Do You Think Naheed Nenshi Will Win the Alberta NDP Leadership Race?

Take this week's poll