(Monday Sept. 15, 2008, CBC)
"I … wrote to Education Minister Shirley Bond in February 2008 to request parents' concerns be considered in the planning of a replacement school," Hansen said.
(Tuesday Sept. 16, 2008, Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun)
Parents are crying foul over a decision to grant concessions to an elementary school after members of its community objected to rules about seismic upgrades and lobbied their MLA - Premier Gordon Campbell - for changes. Peggy Alca said it isn't fair that General Gordon elementary gets special treatment because its parents complained loudly to the province's most powerful politician. "I'm really angry," said Alca, co-chair of the Lord Kitchener parent committee that has been working for seismic upgrades at that school.
I was quoted in the article, and find the treatment of the article fair... but incomplete. What I'd like to have seen was greater emphasis on what we feel is a deeply flawed process, because most of us involved in championing seismic upgrade or school replacement projects do so with our big hat on. We want to see all at risk schools dealt in an expedited manner. I wasn't complaining from a Douglas Elementary point of view, for as far as I know our school project is still moving forward. Should that change, then I'll have more to talk about. Much more.
Its no wonder the Gordon parents felt they had no choice but to go around the system as it stands and for that I can not blame them one bit. Mike Watkins
We all want to see a transparent, logical, fair, process, one that doesn't force parents to go around the VSB. The Ministry of Education and the Premier have it within their power to do the right thing and empower the VSB with a revised process that allows for the complex nature of Vancouver school requirements to be addressed through a formal variance process. Right now there is none - school communities accept a formula school, or their project doesn't go through. Period.
Its no wonder the Gordon parents felt they had no choice but to go around the system as it stands and for that I can not blame them one bit.
However as I've stated on many occasions we can't have every single school at risk become a political battle ground. Tens of thousands of Vancouver-area children go to unsafe schools every day. We must push through seismic projects as quickly as possible, and Vancouver needs the support of the Ministry and the Premier to make this happen.
The use of the word fair can lead a reader to empathize with the subject or it can portray a sour-grapes attitude. Unfortunately the article is written in an ambiguous manner which leaves interpretation up to the reader when from my perspective, as well as that of Peggy Alca who was also quoted in the article, the situation is very clear. We both stressed our dissatisfaction with a flawed process that has at its root the Ministry of Education's one-size fits all formula. We both indicated our dismay having learned that the Premier himself its playing political games in his own riding when the Vancouver School Board has faced a stonewalling Ministry of Education consistently.
At this point we seem to be witnessing a prime example of pork-barrel politics in the Premier's own backyard. He needs to rise above this and make all B.C. schools at risk his priority, not just a few, and its our desire to see a fair, unambiguous yet flexible requirements determination and approval process for all schools that has driven us to speak out.
There has been much communication going back and forth over this issue. Following is the full text of an email I sent to Vancouver School Board Vice Chair Carol Gibson, copied to all trustees and certain Planning and Facilities Committee II members as well as several parents involved in this issue including Dawn Steele whose letter Ms. Gibson had replied to:
September 15, 2008
Email to Carol Gibson, VSB Trustees and Interested Committee II observers and participants
Ms. Gibson:
I appreciate your lengthy response and agree with a number of
elements you have highlighted, in particular the questionable
value of the heritage ranking.
On Mon, September 15, 2008 1:47 am, Carol Gibson (trustee) wrote:
The chronology which you assembled assumes that during this time there was a known and stable framework within which trustees and staff across districts were working. Further, it assumes that the record of meetings during this time permits an observer to deduce a logically defensible sequence of decisions. There were several frameworks in operation during the 3 years, none of which was stable for very long. There is therefore unlikely to be a logical sequence of decisions.
As have staff and trustees, school communities have been witness
to this evolving set of processes and we clearly can see there is
no logical, stable, framework even though VSB trustees and staff
often act/react as if we should be confident there is a
defensible process in place.
It seems very clear from the public portions of Committee
II meetings I've attended that trustees and C-II members had,
quite legitimately, the expectation that whatever process
"framework" was in place at the time would be driven by our local
board of education, not by parents engaging in one-off activism
directly with their MLA, the Premier of the province.
Rebuke seems a fitting term for the words you deployed following
the General Gordon parent presentation at the last C-II meeting
before the summer. I believe you used the term "blindsided" in
reference to the approach taken by General Gordon parents.
I applauded the stance you took at that meeting.
I'm sympathetic to the desires of the General Gordon community
but I am more sympathetic to the needs of the greater Vancouver
public school community. There are dozens of priority projects
which must be done in a much more timely manner. Adding to the
already unprofitable delays introduced by the ministry over the
past few years, this politically driven detour in the process du
jour introduces the real potential for additional delay and
uncertainty.
Its been said at several C-II meetings that members are generally
in favour of any approach that would allow for filling the gap
between school community requirements and the ministry funding
formula, yet at the same time the constant refrain from trustees
and C-II has been that the ministry funding formula is the
defacto "framework" for decision making. Take it, or leave it.
As of the June C-II meeting it was abundantly clear the General
Gordon community approach did not fit into the VSB's operating
"framework" of the day. This was highlighted by the surprise
revelation made by Supt. Kelly of a memo citing a potential pilot
project for certain schools including General Gordon and Douglas
Elementary (which I represent). It was very clear that few,
including yourself Ms. Gibson, were aware of this memo and the
detour it represented. Certainly we, the Douglas community, were
unaware of the existence of this list or inclusion of our school
by the proponents.
In fact, other school communities, including the one I represent,
have been pushed very deliberately to avoid following in Gordon's
footsteps, and indeed we have sought to work with, not against or
behind, the VSB and C-II.
Our out-of-scope, by Ministry standards, requirements were fairly
modest and all were in direct support of school activities, as
opposed to other requests for community services such as daycare
facilities which other schools have come to the table seeking.
Yet even with modest additional requirements to support our
curriculum, physical education/sports and music programs, the
Douglas school community has been told that we have to take on
faith that somehow our real needs will be met by a formula which
does not allow for same. On behalf of the community I was able to
indicate that we would put some faith in the system, but we have
always had deep reservations about this.
We've been taking things on faith for some time now. Once upon a
time we were informed that the completion of our project would be
near 2010. At the time I recall thinking that this would well
serve one of our handicapped children in our all French feeder
school Douglas Annex. Now I can only wonder how she will manage
the inaccessible Douglas Elementary as clearly it will be years
before we see a realistic move in date.
At the meeting I'd indicated our reason for taking a leap of
faith: as a community -- the board, parents and school
communities, the Ministry -- we all have among our other
responsibilities an obligation and duty to see to it that the
children of this province attend a school which they can
reasonably expect to emerge from safely at the end of the day.
This isn't the case today and that reality should weigh heavily
on us all as we make decisions.
Most Vancouver grade school children now attend a school which is
at risk of building envelope failure or total collapse. Each day
we are sending tens of thousands of children into facilities that
were not safe the day they were built 50 or 100 years ago. Unlike
the families in the devastated Sichuan province of China, we
already know this is a problem. If we do not put in place the
best process to solve this critical issue in the shortest period
of time, then we are all to blame for the looming and inevitable
tragedies. To escape justifiable charges of negligence it will
not be sufficient to say that there was a learning curve involved
or multiple decision frameworks.
What have we really learned? Upgrades are costly. New
construction can be cheaper and faster. But we've know these
facts for some time now. Some four years later what we do know
with certainty is that delays and distractions impede progress.
If every school community refuses to work within the system, we
are only condemning more students to live under heightened risk,
and we expose our community to the long term economic and
opportunity costs of significant post-disaster interruption to
education services.
There appears to be universal acceptance that ministry standards
do not provide necessary flexibility. Why then has this board
elected to support the latest political detour rather than
pushing the ministry and the Premier to fix the root problem?
What will we learn out of this pilot process, beyond the obvious
that more money and multiple levels of government and authority
will deliver something more than an educational facility? Lets
save ourselves that exercise because that can be accurately
forecasted today.
The seismic issue transcends all others.
We all know the scope of the problem. We all know the risks.
Projects which could be fast tracked, should be. There isn't a
moment to lose and we've got to start putting more and more
children on the "safe" side of our seismic risk ledger.
On Mon, September 15, 2008 1:47 am, Carol Gibson (trustee) wrote:
As a final comment, I also question a methodology that, in a city as comparatively young as Vancouver, would place 64 of 109 (58%) of Vancouver schools on a heritage registry. Vancouver is not London, Paris
I too question this, as I question why "heritage" values were
used in defense of the selection of schools for this new pilot.
When looked at from that perspective, two of the three schools
proposed for the pilot should not have been entertained.
Perhaps its overly simplistic but ought school selection be based
on:
- Building Risk
- # Students at Risk
- Ease of getting community, board and ministry approvals
- Ease of construction
This would seem to be a far better "framework" than allowing
parent activism to influence project selection. And indeed I
believe these have been guiding principles the board has more or
less relied upon. Until now.
What all parents will want to see is a working, fair, process. A
working process has been a big question mark ever since the
2004/2005 announcements by the Premier; now fairness itself has
been put under the microscope of scrutiny and early reports are
not encouraging.
The instigators behind this pilot - Gordon - were asking for a
variance to deliver non-curriculum special infrastructure.
Contrast this to another school - I'll use Douglas as an example:
that community had only asked for variance on things that were
directly related to the delivery of school programs (including
phys-ed/sports and our large music program). The Douglas
community did not ask for non-school infrastructure such as a
community centre or a day care or other community services.
If the province can see fit to putting some funds for non-school
needs then why can't it see fit to deliver the schools we really
do need? Now there would be a good use for "due diligence";
communities get a standard school by default, and if you can make
the case for additional requirements in service of education, the
Min Ed due diligence team can make a determination pro or con.
Formalize the begging process in other words.
I've no desire to politicize this situation further, because that
will almost guarantee that we do not see a sensible, working,
and fair process that translates to real results. The Premier's
pet project - an 'earmark' to use U.S. terminology, or 'pork
barrel politics' to use a less charitable synonym - is an example
of political pandering that does nothing to advance seismic
safety in Vancouver and in other at-risk areas of the province.
Still, many other school communities must be asking themselves
right now: Ought we now follow in Gordon's footsteps?
I still say: No.
Clearly the Gordon experience has highlighted all that is wrong
with the current "framework" and as a result school communities
have legitimate reason to be concerned that the core deliverable
- seismically safe educational facilities throughout the city -
has now been pushed out even further.
As you said in your note to Ms. Steele, Vancouver's facilities
issues are of a more complex nature than that which other boards
face. Unsaid in your note, we here have the most children at risk
of any municipality in the province.
A pilot project that introduces additional complexity will not
put more children in safer schools in a shorter period of time.
Speaking to you Ms. Gibson as well as all trustees copied on this
communication, what specific changes to the "framework" of the
day would you make in order to get more children in safer schools
in a shorter period of time? Can you give Vancouver school
communities any confidence that there is a workable, fair,
expedient process in place to deliver much-needed seismic
upgrades and replacements? Should every community adopt an
every-man-for-himself attitude and "do the Gordon"?
Michael Watkins
Douglas Elementary 2008/09 Seismic Committee Chair