The Vancouver School Boards first meeting of the new year took place Jan. 16 and the board room was more crowded than usual. Roughly 100 people turned out for the raucous meeting, many in attendance to either show support or disapproval for Non-Partisan Association trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo, who were censured by a vote of 6-3 for controversial comments they made in two separate videos.
COPE trustee Allan Wong introduced the motion to censure his NPA counterparts due to their comments regarding their public misrepresentation of Vancouver Board of Educations anti-homophobia policy. His motion was supported by all Vision Vancouver trustees, including board chair Patti Bacchus, while Fraser Ballantyne joined his NPA colleagues in opposing it.
Denike and Woo both appeared in a video shot months ago on school board property expressing their desire for greater oversight of online school resources after it came to light that a gay-positive provincial teaching resource called Out in Schools included a link to a website that featured graphic sex scenes. (The link has since been taken down.)
The interview footage ended up on the website for the National Organization for Marriage, an American anti-gay marriage lobbyist group, but was removed last week at the request of a lawyer hired by Denike and Woo.
Yet another video, this one shot at a church groups private picnic last August while on the campaign trail, showed the pair addressing a primarily Chinese-speaking audience and suggesting that Vision Vancouver trustees were planning to bring in an anti-bullying policy offering special protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. The district has had a specific anti-homophobia policy on the books since 2004, and Denike has previously apologized in an interview with the Courier if his comments had been misconstrued.
This motion is about ensuring our students, all our students, parents, staff, are aware of our anti-homophobia policy and it is clear that this board tonight takes this issue of anti-homophobia seriously and passionately, said Wong. It is unacceptable for any trustee to provide misinformation and serve up confusion on our strong anti-homophobia policy. These are deliberate steps to weaken our policy.
Denike countered that the motion was instead politically motivated.
These are political slurs, pure and simple, said Denike. As a school trustee, Ive worked hard within the provincial guidelines in an area that among the many communities of our city is contentious. Provincial guidelines give parents the ultimate supervision, the right to choose, and I dont have a problem with that. Even if I did, I would still argue as a trustee that it is my job to work within those guidelines and yet in this case, attempts to follow those guidelines and keep parents informed has resulted in personal attacks, charges of homophobia and the insistence that my decisions are based on prejudice.
Newly elected trustee Woo said she supports the districts anti-homophobia policy but that parents need to be better informed about what is being taught in classrooms.
We are in support of the anti-bullying or anti-homophobic guidelines but as trustees we are responsible for oversight of age-appropriate material, said Woo. We are responsible for keeping parents informed.
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