It’s that time of year again — the PNE is on, vacations are winding down and kids will soon be back at school.
This year, school startup for students, parents and teachers promises to be interesting. Both last fall’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling and last spring’s provincial election will bring changes — some good, others uncertain.
In Vancouver classrooms, there will definitely be smaller classes and more teachers. The Vancouver School Board is getting $31.4 million to hire 325 teachers, but it’s unclear if that will be enough to meet the restored contract rules. In June, VSB interim superintendent John Lewis told me the district had asked for 400 teachers to meet the demands.
Education Minister Rob Fleming has promised “significant investments” in education, and his mandate letter from Premier John Horgan calls on Fleming to “fast-track enhancement to K-12 education funding” and review the funding formula, but no public announcements guaranteeing additional funding to meet the restored contracts have yet been made.
Even if the money is there, the Parent Advocacy Network is concerned the VSB may not be able to get enough qualified teachers in place for September.
“This is creating legitimate concerns that there are insufficient qualified teachers available to fill these positions for September, which may result in classes without teachers,” the parent group said in a letter to Fleming.
Jennifer Stewart, a member of PAN and Families Against Cuts to Education and a Vancouver parent, said the things she is most concerned about all depend on provincial funding. As well as money for the teachers’ contract, she wants to see seismic upgrades done now, an end to constant budget cuts, consistent and adequate maintenance funding and new schools built where and when they’re needed.
“Our school [Simon Fraser elementary] turned away 60 in-catchment kindergarteners this year, some of whom live just blocks from the school, because there is no school in Olympic Village and Olympic Village is in our catchment,” Stewart said. “They should have built the school when building the ‘village.’”
The squeeze on school space is particularly acute this year because of the new smaller class sizes. At eight Vancouver public elementary schools, space was at such a premium this year that lotteries had to be held for kindergarten spaces. Specialty programs such as French immersion and Mandarin immersion were also hard hit by the new size limits. And in some cases, schools that were renting space to daycares had to give the childcare providers notice, because they had to reclaim the space for classrooms. The VSB has promised a review of all school boundaries this year, so that could bring more surprises.
This month, government restored tuition-free Adult Basic Education and English Language Learning courses. In 2015, the former Liberal government started charging tuition for these courses, which resulted in a 35 per cent drop in enrolment in just two years. The VSB closed two adult education centres to save money, and there has been no word of re-opening them, despite the restored funding. However, after two years of students not being able to access these courses due to fees of up to $1,600 per course, I predict some pent-up demand. That, of course, will mean sooner or later the VSB will have to hire even more teachers and will need more space to meet this demand.
And finally, there is the trustee election, which Fleming announced will be held Oct. 14. It’s highly unlikely voters will elect a similar board to the previous one, which was politically split and which two investigations have said allowed bullying of VSB staff. For one thing, long-time trustee and former chairwoman Patti Bacchus will not be running. Neither will NPA trustee Penny Noble, who is vying to be her party’s candidate in the city council byelection. Beyond that, the parties have not made official selections of candidates, though it is likely that several other former trustees, such as former Vision trustee and board chair Mike Lombardi and former Green trustee Janet Fraser, will be on the ballot.
Stewart says she hasn’t given much thought to the trustee election, given that the big decisions all rely on provincial decisions.
“The new government has made promising statements about the importance of funding public education, but it remains to be seen whether they will follow through fully with that commitment,” Stewart said.
Tracy Sherlock writes about education and social issues. She can be reached at [email protected].
