On a cool afternoon in early March, school board chair Patti Bacchus stood alongside dozens of teachers and parents in front of Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid's West Broadway office. Bacchus carried a sign stating "Support Our Schools" at the rally staged by the Vancouver elementary and secondary teachers' associations.

It was timed to precede the March 2 provincial budget announcement and activists were calling for more education funding from the B.C. Liberals. It was one of several protests the Vision Vancouver trustee appeared at this year as the board ramped up an advocacy campaign aimed at increasing funding to stave off program cuts and staff layoffs.

Vision Vancouver and COPE trustees have become outspoken critics of the provincial government, complaining about chronic underfunding of the education system and downloading of costs.

Since the board was elected, it's fired off letters to the Ministry of Education asking for meetings and highlighting the district's financial concerns, it's reinstated its advocacy committee and it's launched a trustee advocacy page on the VSB website.

Whether trustees have managed to take on such activities while living up to their fiduciary duties is in question, according to special adviser Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, the Comptroller General, whose highly critical--and controversial--report on the board's financial performance was released by the education minister last week.

"The Board of trustees does not take a balanced approach to its accountabilities, focusing on advocacy at the expense of stewardship," Wenezenki-Yolland wrote. "The majority of the Vancouver School Board trustees see their role relative to the Ministry of Education as one primarily related to advocacy, rather than as 'co-governors' of the education system. The effect of this extensive advocacy activity deflects the accountability of the trustees from the overall financial stewardship of the Vancouver School Board."

Bacchus insists the board's advocacy work doesn't detract from financial responsibilities, pointing out it's always submitted a balanced budget, and she calls herself "proudly political."

"This report implies we should be quiet and go in and cut programs. But really what they describe is the role of a bureaucrat--you're given a budget, you're told to go and do the work and keep quiet about it," she said earlier this week. "I campaigned on a platform of being a tireless advocate standing up for public education... We think that is an important role [but] we do attend to the business of the district."

The VSB is composed of four Vision Vancouver trustees--Patti Bacchus, Ken Clement, Sharon Gregson and Mike Lombardi, three COPE trustees--Al Blakey, Jane Bouey and Allan Wong, and two NPA trustees--Ken Denike and Carol Gibson.

Bacchus, a mother of two school-aged children and stepmother to an adult daughter, ran for a trustee seat in 2008 after years of involvement in school and district parent advisory councils. She's unapologetically political and is defiant in the face of such criticism.

Bacchus maintains she spends untold hours each week managing the district's business for her $26,000 annual pay, and only a portion of that time is devoted to advocacy, some of which is related to promoting the district--an activity the special adviser encourages.

"I don't think I've missed a committee meeting, a board meeting. All of our finances are well looked after. You'd think from [Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland's] comments that we weren't balancing our budget. And our schools are among the top performing in the province; our graduation rates are probably as strong as they've ever been. We have great programs going on, we're innovative, we're leaders. So tell me where the bad management is and what we're neglecting?" she says.

Bacchus refuses to limit her advocacy work, arguing that would break campaign promises, and she insists the board takes its financial duties seriously. "Why would we have all those budget meetings and listen to people if we didn't care about our budget responsibilities?" she says.

Bacchus maintains advocacy is key because the district hasn't faced this level of reductions before. "I've talked to staff people who've been in the district over 30 years and they've said they've never seen this kind of cutting--that we're now cutting things they can't believe are being cut. We've seen it year after year. It's already been $50 million. It's at that critical point--we're now at the point of dismantling the school system, of taking away things that people just assumed would never be taken away."

Julianne Doctor, chair of the District Parent Advisory Council, agrees advocacy is important. "Trustees were criticized for advocating for education and proper funding of education--that is their responsibility and they would not be fulfilling their role if they were not advocating for proper funding," she says.

But in her report, Wenezenki-Yolland criticizes the district's standing committee structure, suggesting it slows down decision-making. She said trustees follow a consensus approach, which Bacchus denies, that increases the time it takes to make decisions and dilutes accountability. She added the level of consultation undertaken by the board is far more extensive than would be expected.

Between January 2009 through April 2010, staff costs for attending and preparing for board and committee meeting are estimated at between $800,000 and $1 million, with some staff attending as many as 103 meetings, a commitment of up to 206 hours.

Wenezenki-Yolland noted the advocacy committee, a sub-committee of the management and coordinating committee, requires $17,000 in staff time to prepare for and attend committee meetings, but she was unable to estimate the additional staff time spent on advocacy.

"In addition to providing staff support to the advocacy committee, the VSB communications department spends an increasing amount of its time on advocacy work, at the expense of other communications work of the school district," Wenezenki-Yolland wrote, questioning the appropriateness of using district resources to fund advocacy work. "While elected officials are free to choose to engage in political activity using their own resources or the resources of the political party they represent, the use of organizational resources for political purposes is generally considered to be inappropriate in public sector organizations regardless of the level of government."

The majority of trustees support Bacchus's position, but not all agree on what their role is or whether they've struck the right balance between advocacy and fiscal responsibility. The NPA's Denike and Gibson maintain their political counterparts have treated advocacy as their primary job. Denike argues it's damaged the district and become counterproductive.

"By pushing the advocacy they create a really negative view on what the district looks like and they basically help encourage private schools," he says, noting trustees' efforts were in vain since the provincial government refuses to give the VSB more money to offset its projected $17 million budget shortfall for the 2010/11 school year.

"There's no additional funds and [the board] seems to be working on somebody else's agenda. It's pretty clear it's a combination of the NDP and the BCTF...The report is flawed in a lot of regards but there are some home truths there--one of them is the advocacy and quite frankly if it's not been successful then the funds put into it are questionable."

The long-time trustee agrees there's a place for advocacy, pointing out he was successful in past years lobbying the federal government for funding for settlement workers in schools, and lobbying the provincial government to ensure those funds were filtered to schools, but Denike argues the board under Bacchus has adopted the wrong tactics. He favours a less adversarial approach and one that doesn't erode confidence in the public education system.

Denike has appeared at some education rallies as an observer. "You should be there to see what's happening and read the public. I'm not sure you should be there as part of it," he says.

Gibson says because Vision and COPE trustees landed a majority of seats, they assume they represent the majority of Vancouverites and that the majority "elected them to be partisan special interest trustees who would vigorously advocate for their special interests."

"Repeatedly the justification for advocacy is 'I was elected to advocate' as if that is all there is to being an elected member of a school board. Given the low voter turnout and the proportion of the population who actually voted for school board candidates, there is a significant amount of hubris in the assumption that the majority candidates actually represent the citizens of Vancouver," she says.

Gibson says she ran for office under the NPA because it doesn't require candidates to take partisan or special interest positions.

"There is no expectation that I will use public resources or the authority of the board to enact a special interest group agenda. The primary expectation is that I will use my knowledge and experience to serve public education in Vancouver and in B.C. This does not mean advocacy is out of the question. What it does mean is that advocacy must be balanced with governance and stewardship," she says.

Gibson argues that balance doesn't exist in Vancouver.

"We have advocacy on steroids," she says. "Management has borne the weight of responsibility related to governance and stewardship with minimal support and occasional organized resistance from the majority on the board.

"Through explicit decisions, the majority on the board has undermined trust and made it impossible to take actions that would assist the Vancouver Board of Education to reduce the budget shortfall."

Gibson cites one case in which an external consultant was hired for $2,100 to verify a management report recommending the district continue to use contractors to clean carpets. "This decision to continue to contract out carpet cleaning did not require a consultant report. The data were accurate; the report from management was unassailable. Knowing they faced a multi-million dollar shortfall, the majority of the board wasted $2,100 to have a consultant tell them the report from management was accurate."

(Bacchus counters that the board wants to improve labour relations to cut down on high grievance and arbitration costs. She says the union was challenging management figures and $2,100 was a small price to pay to deal with the dispute)

Gibson also criticizes recent changes to the school closure policy, which lengthens the notification and consultation process and makes it difficult for the board to close under-enrolled schools in a timely manner to address pressing budget shortfalls.

"The minister and the Comptroller General have reason to be concerned that the majority on the board is not governing, and in fact, making decisions and enacting policy barriers solely to bolster their claims that the district is in a financial crisis that requires more funding from government," she says.(

Professor E. Wayne Ross from UBC's Faculty of Education, won't comment on the board's financial performance, but says trustees are within their rights to advocate for public education.

"...What they're arguing is a justifiable position, particularly in the face of a government that has dealt with public education in much the same way they've dealt with other public interests like B.C. Rail and B.C. Ferries, which is to treat, as the first principle, market issues and fiscal issues and, as a secondary issue, think about the common good that is produced by that particular public entity and how government should sustain it," he says.

Ross cites a proposal being considered by the board to severely hike up rental rates for services such as after-school programs, which would put many out of business and create a childcare crisis for parents. Some trustees have indicated that while they realize the board is subsidizing rates, it serves a greater community good and it doesn't make sense to make it impossible for after school programs to run.

"I don't think it's irresponsible for the school board to make these kinds of principled stands advocating service levels for students," Ross says. "The issue comes down to do we want a school board that would roll over and make cuts that are going to be detrimental to the education of children in the district, to the families in the district, via things like potential cuts to after school programs through removing subsidies? Would we want them to do that without putting up a battle? I would say no."

Paul Shaker, an SFU education professor emeritus and host of a TV program called Your Education Matters, agrees.

"The voters of Vancouver have elected this board. This is democracy. At the next election if the voters believe that these board members are behaving out of line they'll elect other people, but I think the voters knew what they were getting when they elected the board," he says. "If not the school trustees, who should advocate for our children? Are we going to leave it to non-profit organizations?...[Trustees] should be the preeminent advocates."

In a stuffy classroom at Sir Charles Tupper secondary Wednesday night, it's clear Bacchus, Blakey, Wong, Bouey and Lombardi have no intention of curbing advocacy efforts. The five trustees were guests at an emergency meeting organized by Vancouver Parents for Public Education to talk about the special adviser's report. Joining the roomful of parents were teacher union reps, former trustees Eleanor Gregory and Noel Herron, and NDP MLA Shane Simpson.

Bacchus rebutted many of the claims in the report to a friendly audience that expressed fears about the fate of public education--some predicted the demise of elected school boards, others congratulated trustees for their public support of the institution while under attack for their advocacy work.

Bacchus acknowledged the last week was a struggle and the board was hit hard, but she promised to continue fighting for public education.

"The assessment is done at the ballot box. That's democracy," she said.

noconnor@vancourier.com