There is a river of rhetoric spewing from Premier Gordon Campbell and Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid these days. The sound bites being flushed out of Victoria invariably paint a picture of too many empty spaces being a key source of Vancouver's budget issues.

The conclusion the provincial government wants the public to reach is that closing a few schools would solve the budget problems Vancouver and other boards face. If only this were true, boards would have relatively easy decisions to make.

On April 13 the Vancouver Board of Education sent a letter to MacDiarmid offering a mini course in basic math:

Prior to Easter, you stated there are 10,000 empty seats in Vancouver. Last week, you revised the number down to 7,000 empty seats. Neither figure is correct.

We've done our own review of the numbers, and we currently estimate our district-wide net surplus spaces to be 4,682. If we include portable classroom capacity in the total, we have a net surplus of 5,796 spaces. These figures are based on district enrolment as of Sept. 30, 2009. We have also assumed that all Kindergarten classrooms will become full-day Kindergarten classes with the implementation of full-day Kindergarten.

Since 2006 when the last inventory was completed, Vancouver has reduced available spaces by decommissioning portable classrooms. School reconstruction for the provincial seismic safety program is another opportunity to reduce classroom capacity in specific schools.

Without any demographic changes, new education programs the Ministry has ordered districts to implement or plan for, including full-day Kindergarten and early-education pre-K, will move the Vancouver district from a surplus capacity position to having a deficit of 715 seats based on current projections.

Unsurprisingly, neither the Minister nor Campbell mention that Vancouver and other districts are facing space shortfalls in the foreseeable future. Closing a few schools on a temporary basis will net a small savings to the board, but will not close the funding gap forced upon the district by Minister MacDiarmid and her boss.

More to the point what has been left unsaid by the Minister is that Victoria won't even permit a permanent closure and sale of any school by the Vancouver Board of Education.

Why? Because they know those spaces will be needed in the near future.

In response to John Puddifoot - On the contrary John, trustees make extensive efforts to work with this Minister but she doesn't seem to want to work with us. We met with her last summer and briefed her on budget issues, past, present and projected. We showed her where our costs would be going up and made sure she understood and we welcomed any questions she had.

We asked where our overdue AFG funds were as the work was being carried out as we met. She said it would be along soon.

A few weeks later we got a letter late on a Thursday advising us our AFG funds were being completely cancelled and they were clawing back $400,000 in holdback funds they'd allocated to us in June. Not a very cooperative way to work together.

We've been asking for a meeting with the Minister since late 2009. She finally agreed to me us last Friday, but cancelled a few days before we were to meet. We've sent her many letters about our challenges and I've left her phone messages that remain unanswered.

Her Ministry asked our district to work together on the possibility of shared services and we agreed to and that is underway.

We've sent the Minister all our budget documents and invited her to attend any or all of our public budget meetings (our offices are three blocks apart and she lives less than five minutes from our head office). She has not attended any meetings nor responded to our invitations.

While these quieter attempts at working together don't make the 6 o'clock news, they will continue. However when the diplomatic approaches are met with indifference or not even acknowledged, we have a responsibility to our students to stand up for the supports and services they need, and it is time for some slings and arrows.

Her response to that is to send in a Special Adviser who is now hampered by Terms of Reference that will severely limit any meaningful review that could result in something positive for our schools, although we're cooperating fully and hoping very much that we'll be pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Fingers crossed.

Just this weekend the Minister demonstrated her unwillingness to engage with trustees to address the very real challenges facing school districts. After her disappointing speech at the BCSTA AGM, the minister took only three questions from the hundreds of trustees gathered, several whom were lined up at microphones waiting to ask questions. She said she was too busy to take more but then walked over to the news media scrum where she took the time to answer seven questions from reporters.

So John, who do you think isn't willing to work with whom?

Patti Bachuss, Chair, Vancouver Board of Education

Years ago amid great fanfare Gordon Campbell made a promise to make B.C. the best educated and most literate jurisdiction in the world.

His grade? Whether one assigns an "F" for fail, or "Did Not Complete", the result is the same.

The recently minted education minister gets to wear the problem but won't have the clout to do anything about it.

B.C. schools face cuts to libraries, lunch programs (Globe and Mail, Wednesday Sept. 9, 2009) Maintenance, extracurriculars had to be cut to protect core funding, Education Minister says -- Ms. MacDiarmid said this is an "unusual year" and suggested money will be found if emergency repairs are needed. "The ministry is not suggesting that maintenance never be done again," she said. "If student safety could be in jeopardy, clearly we will work with the school districts."

I wonder if Ms. MacDiarmid, a medical doctor, believes that seismically unsafe schools - more than 300 in the province, almost 100 in Vancouver alone, some at high risk of collapse in a major earthquake - puts "student safety" in "jeopardy"?

I don't agree with everything President-elect Obama is planning for his economic stimulus package (building new roads and bridges is surely not the most important of America's needs) but I do agree fully and completely with this:

Third, my economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.

As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m President – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world. President-elect Barack Obama, December 6, 2008

Public school advocates have been waiting for some time to get a look at the British Columbia Auditor General's report: Planning for School Seismic Safety (PDF, attached). [Update: link corrected]

Much of the report's careful bureaucratese will put you to sleep. I find it falls short of evaluating the Ministry of Education (MEd) in one key area: timeliness. The abysmal pace of reconstruction project approvals since 2004 suggests that MEd has intentionally delayed project approvals.

One snippet from the report I'd like to highlight here:

The program proposal approved by the Minister of Education in 2004 included four delivery options:

• ministry project delivery — the ministry funds within the „„current project delivery framework;
• central agency — central agency established to implement the „„program and manage the projects;
• long-term school board — the ministry develops a long‑term „„implementation plan and performance contracts with individual school boards to implement the program; and
• long-term public/private — government develops a long‑term „„implementation plan providing opportunities for the private sector to deliver the program.

Ministry management recommended that the fourth option, a public‑private partnership, be chosen to deliver the program, but did not include an evaluation of each of the options.

Since 2004, the ministry has explored different ways of managing the Seismic Mitigation Program and of providing support for boards of education. Among the options tried has been the use of a public‑private partnership for delivering projects across school districts as originally planned and, when that did not prove viable, contracting with other government agencies for project oversight services.

However, after more than three years, the ministry has still not identified a delivery model that meets the needs of all stakeholders. The ministry is exploring a model designed to provide additional oversight while providing funding and resources to boards of education to help them build capacity to effectively manage their seismic projects.

Bottom line: ideology - the Premier's Partnerships BC program - has distracted and delayed critical seismic safety upgrades and school reconstruction project approvals. While the approach may make sense for some projects, it has not proven to be so for school upgrade and reconstruction programs.

We should not allow experiments with different business models to delay what are life-safety issues in hundreds of B.C. schools. Children, staff, parents and other facility users in these schools are at risk and the work required is not optional. Hundreds need to be upgraded or rebuilt, and there is a fixed cost to that reality which won't much change no matter what business model is employed. Surely the Minister responsible can see now that applying human resources to the problem, and increasing annual funding to the program, is the only way forward.

Lets get on with it.

Twas the night before the vote, and all through the land, electors dreamed that Vancouver would elect trustees and councillors with the vision to cope with the challenges ahead. Come on Vancouver, forget that boring mayoralty race and focus on school board. You know you want to. [sarcasm off]

Vancouver school board and education issues in the news, for your pre or post voting pleasure:

Fight Victoria, urge parents at school board debate: Parents expressed anger and frustration at the chronic delays in seismic school upgrades at a school board candidates debate last night in Vancouver, urging the panel to fight Victoria on what many see as a forced choice between school space, and school safety. (Colleen Kimmett, The Tyee, Friday November 14, 2008)

Child Care Bottleneck a Hot Voter Issue: Wait lists are long but empty classrooms stay off limits for care. Stressed parents are fuming. (Charles Campbell, The Tyee, Friday November 14, 2008) See also:

• After-school care in Vancouver hits crisis point (Charles Campbell, The Georgia Straight, August 21, 2008)

NPA makes education promises ahead of election (Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun, Wednesday, November 12, 2008)

Opposition candidates attack NPA school trustees: Two of the city's three major political civic parties have released their platforms for the Nov. 14 school board election. Vision released its school board platform Monday morning and COPE released a sprawling platform last week. The NPA says its positions will be released any day. (Cheryl Rossi , Vancouver Courier, Wednesday November 5, 2008)

NPA school trustee candidates out of touch with what is really happening in Vancouver schools, teachers say: Vancouver teachers are surprised at the lack of knowledge among the NPA candidates for school board trustee about the current realities of Vancouver public schools. (CNW Newswire, Wednesday November 8, 2008)

Vision platform to limit class size, advertising in schools (Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun, Monday, November 03, 2008)

Secret Vancouver school report on closures released, but heavily censored: A confidential report on the future of Vancouver public schools has been released more than a year after it was presented to trustees during an in camera meeting, but it's so heavily edited that it reveals little. (Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun, Tuesday, October 28, 2008)

Construction for both new schools and structural upgrades is one of the big issues facing Vancouver parents and other school community stakeholders, as almost one hundred

Fixing leaky schools: The province has settled with boards of education over the repair of leaky buildings. It was a long time coming, Wendy Stueck writes, and the work is only beginning. School boards have been looking for some way to recoup costs of repairs that in some cases amount to millions of dollars. The problems, similar to those that emerged with condominiums, involve "water ingress" or leaks, and affect schools built between 1985 and 2000. (Wendy Stueck, The Globe and Mail, Saturday November 15, 2008) See also:

• Recently constructed Dickens Elementary in Vancouver had its own construction issues; apparently either the designers or contractors got building elevations incorrect and as a result the middle block, which connects the classroom block to the gymnasium block, has what may prove to be an expensive flaw. The roof deck in the middle has a significant slope that leads directly to a glass wall and entry way on the classroom block. Some have expressed concerns that significant rain or snowfall could lead to future water ingress issues.
• Taxpayers' bill soars for leaky school: British Columbia is spending $2 million to repair an Abbotsford school built to great acclaim in 2000 as the province's first and only experiment with a public-private partnership (P3) for school construction. (Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun, Monday November 10, 2008)

Platforms for COPE [HTML], NPA [MS Word], Vision [PDF] can be found at the aforementioned links and are also attached for future reference (Note for the MS Word challenged: I've provided here a PDF version of the NPA document).

Should Vancouverites cast votes for candidates who remain in hiding or mute in the audience?

The NPA appears to have decided all they needed to do to quash the "skipping out" complaints was to show up in force last night and... sit in the audience. A fairly full suite of incumbent and would be NPA trustee candidates, plus at least a handler and supporter or two, turned out last night.

Unfortunately, and I mean that with sincerity, we heard nothing from those new to this process. Le Gallais and Singh were in the audience as was Clarence Hansen; I don't recall seeing Woo, Holden or Nance but they may have been there, mute in the audience (not for the first time).

Hansen, Denike, and Gibson we already well know. It's the rest that need to earn our votes and in my opinion they have failed to do this. That's not a partisan swipe but fair comment on the process. How are we to understand how these newcomers would act as stewards of the district without having meaningful interaction from them?

I don't elect slates, I want to elect capabilities.

How can a responsible voter become aware of a candidate's capabilities if the candidate hides from the public? Should a two paragraph party-supplied bio be enough? No.

(Tangential rant: We don't even know what the writing skills of the MIA candidates are, as the biography for most NPA candidates appears to have been written by a single person - note the style similarity and consistent use of the third person.)

A scant bio on the the city and party web sites isn't enough to provide voters with sufficient information to elect someone to be responsible for the management of a board of education that touches 55,000 children and 100,000 (one in six) Vancouverites. Should we be voting for candidates we know very little about, thus giving them the management responsibility for a budget of almost half a billion dollars?

No, I don't believe we should.

I have routinely voted for a mix of candidates from all parties, including the NPA, picking and choosing who best should take on responsibility. I certainly will not be casting a ballot for candidates that refuse to speak out in public, or, having done so once and failed, aren't brave enough to use another public opportunity to perhaps better express themselves.

There is no point in electing weak representatives to School Board. Their hands are already bound by the nature of the co-governance relationship all school boards share with the Ministry of Education. I would hope Vancouver voters don't further hamstring the School Board by electing members who are not strong enough to speak with courage of their convictions and past experiences and how they will apply those abilities to the task of continually improving our local school system.

If trustee candidates aren't strong enough to brave an evening with some parents, how in the world are they going to be strong enough to take on the (often thankless) job?

Vancouver parents and other school community stakeholders have on Thursday evening a last opportunity before the election Saturday to interact with school trustee candidates:

NPA school trustee candidates at a press conference today apologized for not showing up at last week's DPAC sponsored event at Bayview Community School.

Heather Holden, an NPA incumbent parks board trustee now running for school board, said "It was regrettable that nobody was there to represent us", while at the same time claiming their candidate's schedules prevented participation. That's not accurate at all. Thankfully at least NPA incumbent candidate Carol Gibson was honest about the situation today.

A question for Heather Holden: should one vote for a candidate if they can't even be honest about attending a meeting? I should think not.

Held at Bayview Community School in the picturesque west side neighbourhood of West Point Grey, last night's forum for school board trustee candidates was well attended by the public and by many trustee candidates. Regrettably for all involved not a single NPA candidate or incumbent trustee showed up.

Last night was not the first time the NPA muzzled candidates.

According to organizers of the meeting, despite having long planned to participate, the NPA pulled their participation citing concerns over the format which allowed for a five minute opening statement by a representative from each party. The NPA is said to oppose having a productive town-hall style forum merely because COPE and Vision together are seen as a slate, and effectively are given an extra opportunity to speak.

This complaint is of course utter nonsense. Parents and public attending these meetings don't care at all about the delivery of scripted party lines in an opening statement. What we really came to hear is how candidates answer questions and thus be forced to think on their feet. Hearing their answers is hugely instructive as to the nature of their experience and quality of their character.

Put in context, the opening statements covered only fifteen minutes of what has turned out at both DPAC hosted events this week to be more than two and a half hours of productive discussion.

The evening prior four NPA candidates--incumbent trustee Ken Denike along with hopefuls Sophia Woo, Margit Nance, and Eileen Le Gallais--turned out for a similar meeting at Van Tech on Vancouver's east side.

I attended both meetings. Having carefully watched both forums, my objective assessment is that the NPA does not wish to put its rookie candidates under the light of further scrutiny. One can naturally draw a conclusion, quite correctly in my estimation, as to why.

At the Van Tech debate on Wednesday incumbent trustee Ken Denike took most of the questions and was seen to be urging his co-candidates to take questions from time to time, often without success. Some, not all, responses provided by the NPA rookies could be at best described as... disappointing. At worst? Ill-informed.

Margit Nance, judging by how little we heard from her, is capable of speaking for herself but repeatedly chose not to. We'll never know, before election day at least, if she can acquit herself well or not.

Eileen Le Gallais should have said less. Notably her suggested solution for the interlinked problems of class composition and chronic underfunding of special education positions was to draft volunteers, in some cases from within the ranks of senior school grades. Le Gallais left the distinct impression that her years of experience in education are rooted in yesteryears, and that her thinking has not advanced with the times. Sophia Woo had nothing remarkable to say during her infrequent times at the microphone. The public has an interest in hearing more, not less, from these and other candidates.

The point of this post is not to rail on about individuals or one party but to illustrate why the NPA pulled out which had nothing to do with "format" but everything to do with the performance of their own candidates. If NPA rookie trustee candidates are unwilling to stand up to public scrutiny, they certainly should not be entrusted with the job of standing up for our children!

After over two and a half hours of questions and answers, we mostly heard from Ken Denike and barely heard anything from the three rookie NPA candidates sitting on stage. At least one other NPA rookie trustee candidate, Lakhbir Singh, was in the building but did not participate.

There was a subtle difference in how each meeting was moderated. At Van Tech a representative from each party was given opportunity and time to respond to questions. Some parties took advantage of their time to pass the microphone to another representative to complete an answer. The NPA did not take advantage of this possibility to include more voices than Denike's.

At Bayview the process started out similarly but the moderator quite adeptly recognized that time limits were not so necessary and all those who had something to add in response to a question were provided the opportunity to do so.

Yesterday many parents gave three hours of their evening and came out to Bayview on a cold and blustery night. Had the NPA bothered to repay this courtesy and join the discussion, I have no doubt whatsoever that the all trustee candidates would have found the atmosphere collegial and conducive to a substantial discussion on what turned out to be a broad array of topics.

Pulling candidates from debate is a tactic which the Conservative Party has made its signature move. By adopting this sleazy tactic, it would appear the NPA believe their best route to electoral success it to hide its candidates from public view and scrutiny.

I have never voted a "slate" in civic elections, preferring to pick and choose on my own the candidates for council, parks, and schools. Thus in the past I've cast a vote for some of the same NPA trustee candidates who now refuse to talk openly with parents. I travelled across town expecting to be able to chat with Trustee Gibson (NPA) and some of the new faces now vying to lead our board of education. I want to know where my vote is going—no party and no individual gets an automatic ✗ from me.

Anyone who knows me well understands I am a passionate believer in real democracy. Too many of our world's problems are caused, aided, and abetted by secrecy and deception. Our political process and outcomes deserve better than underhanded tactics.

The NPA school trustee candidates have one last chance to redeem themselves: Hosted by Think City, there will be a final all candidates forum held next week, Thursday November 13th from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at Laura Secord Elementary, 2500 Lakewood Avenue (in between Broadway and 12th avenue). Details and registration.

Vancouver Sun education columnist Janet Steffenhagen writes: Is the premier playing favourites?

Four more Vancouver schools have been promised benefits from the Neighbourhoods of Learning project, but other districts are still waiting to hear what's in it for them.

Last month, a ministry official wrote to the Vancouver board of education offering to include Douglas, Kitchener, Sexsmith and Secord elementary schools in the NoL program. It's not clear what that means since these four will not be part of the pilot project, but they have submitted wishlists, as requested, for ministry consideration.

For the record our school, Sir James Douglas Elementary - in Vancouver, not the identically named school in Victoria - submitted a detailed requirements gap analysis, not a "wishlist".

The analysis determined where the Ministry of Education's Ministry Area Standards (attached) fail to recognize and meet the needs of a large, middle-school like, elementary school. The school community came together to analyse what was additionally required on top of the MAS to deliver all the programming Douglas currently provides. Completely devoid of any wishlist items, the factual and unemotional document ran on some 13 pages.

Its telling of the existing B.C. Seismic Mitigation Program and school capital funding process that at no time does anyone connected with MEd or the Vancouver School Board even pretend to undertake the analysis the school community ultimately had to do themselves. Yet, unbelievably, MEd funds school replacement projects without ever having contemplated actual on the ground requirements. Local boards of education are instead forced by MEd to use a simplistic cookie-cutter approach where quite literally what defines a school project is looked up in a table based on headcount alone.

Indeed the capital funding formula and processes have been broken for many years. Notwithstanding the past, given the recent communication from MEd to the Vancouver School Board I remain hopeful that we are witnessing something of a sea change in Victoria's attitude towards funding school seismic safety upgrade and replacement projects. Yet as optimistic as I'd like to be, its impossible not to note the sudden shift in attitudes towards funding school capital projects has arrived just as a civic election is about to conclude, and a provincial election is about to start.