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).

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.

85% of Vancouver district school children enter an unsafe building each school day

One of the advocacy projects I'm working on in my copious spare time is the on-going effort by parents to force local, provincial and federal governments to step up to the plate and once and for all deal with a looming disaster in our midst ... earthquake safety in Vancouver and other at-risk B.C. communities.

Last night I went through the entire inventory of Vancouver schools and apportioned students into "at risk" or "safer" buckets according to the seismic assessments done in 2004. Here's what I come up with: Seven of every ten Vancouver district students sit in an unsafe classroom each school day.

The safety issue is actually worse than that. If one accounts for all children attending a facility with one or more at-risk building blocks there are more than 45,000 of Vancouver's 54,000 school children (four of every five) exposed to elevated risk from earthquakes.

My review only took into account Vancouver School District - #39. While we have the most students at risk of any single district in the province, there are many tens of thousands of additional B.C. students and other school facility users that need and deserve safe schools too.

In an instant a significant earthquake can change our city. In May of this year in an instant thousands of children were killed by their own school collapsing upon them in China's Sichuan province. We've seen the same sorry tale play out all over the world.

These disasters do not only visit far off lands. It isn't a China or a Pakistan problem, it is our problem. We will see a major earthquake in this region, very likely within our lifetime. We mustn't gamble with the lives of tens of thousands of B.C. children, yet for every day projects that we know must be done sit on waiting lists unapproved and unfunded, that is exactly what our society is doing.

We should all be shocked but aren't as many parents are completely unaware scope of the problem. If you are a Vancouver area parent, next time you are at the school yard have a look at the kids and consider that on every school day 4 out of every 5 Vancouver children will spend their day in unsafe classrooms, gymnasiums, workshops, science labs, libraries, administration offices, change rooms, lunch rooms and wash rooms.

This is not an issue which only affects the obviously very old schools in our city. Almost every single school built prior to the 1970's (and even some of those built as recently as thirty years ago) requires either seismic upgrades or total replacement.

Our provincial government made a big promise in 2004 to fix and replace the broken schools but they've not yet achieved the objective they set for themselves. Its time to see that promise fulfilled: fix or replace the dangerous schools.

We are not talking about a divisive issue. Ideology plays no part in this. All parties and any government will want to do everything possible to ensure the safety of our most precious resource, our society's children. Committing the right amount of money and to an accelerated schedule to address all of the hundreds of B.C. schools at risk is simply the right thing, the only thing, to do.

As quoted in a recent CBC news piece, Vancouver School Board Chair Clarence Hansen appears to suggest that he has been lobbying for a special situation for the General Gordon school community for many months. This is a revision of history which needs to be corrected.

The chair of the Vancouver Board of Education issued a statement Monday night, offering a "clarification" of the decision upon which the three schools were selected. Clarence Hansen said a seismic study determined General Gordon should be replaced because the cost for renovation exceeded the cost of replacement.

He said the school's parent advisory committee took their concerns to the premier's office and advocated for it to be one of the three project schools while getting seismic upgrades at the same time.

"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.

Hansen wrote the letter to Minister of Education Shirley Bond on 20 February 2008. Only one paragraph makes mention of the Gordon community needs specifically; Hansen's letter is appropriately focussed on the additional needs which many of Vancouver's schools have over and beyond the standard Ministry policy. Indeed Hansen recognizes this as the current reality in the second paragraph of his letter (attached in full at the end of this post):

Many of the issues raised in this case are also relevant to other proposed and current projects within the district. The Board recognizes the Ministry's policy on such issues but is asking herein for clarification and consideration for change to the current facility area and funding standards. Clarence Hansen, Chair, Vancouver School Board

Parents did not meet with Premier Campbell until many weeks had passed; they did so in frustrated reaction to the lack of flexibility the Vancouver School Board had at its disposal.

Hansen's letter translated into zero action. He did what he was asked to do. Nothing was forthcoming from the Ministry until parents from the Gordon community went direct to their MLA who happens to be the Premier of the province. They were provided with positive feedback from the Premier but no conclusive promises up front.

Meanwhile back at the VSB, Trustees continued to operate with no knowledge of a forthcoming pilot project announcement from the Premier which means that every school under consideration, including Gordon, had to operate within the existing policies Hansen refers to in his February letter to Minister Bond--policies which Gordon and many other school communities have long been fighting against.

The Minister would have us all believe that extensive consultation was taking place between the VSB and the Ministry at the same time that the Vice Chair of the VSB was berating Gordon parents for "blindsiding" the VSB by going direct to the Premier.

This doesn't wash as anyone involved or closely observing the process can attest. Minister Bond and Chair Hansen ought to get their stories straight before going on camera.

Attached:

"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.

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:

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

Update: I want to make it clear that my beef with the Neighbourhoods of Learning pilot project announcement is fully aimed at the provincial government, not at either the Gordon parent committee nor at the Vancouver School Board (VSB).

Had the Ministry of Education developed a rational funding and approval scheme, and stuck to such a policy, political opportunism coming from the Premier's office would not be the issue it is today.

My experience with the VSB has been they are treating all areas of the city with fairness and due process. But the process framework, imposed by the Ministry of Education, is flawed, and that has driven parents to do whatever they can to achieve that which they feel is necessary.

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.

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.

VSB chairman defends upgrade of school in premier's riding (Monday Sept. 15 2008, Vancouver Sun):

The B.C. government, not the Vancouver board of education, selected a school in Premier Gordon Campbell's riding for special treatment under a $30-million project unveiled this month, the board chairman admitted Sunday. But Clarence Hansen said he supports the government's choice, even though some parents are angry over what appears to be political favouritism.

No politics? Then explain this:

Hansen said General Gordon "isn't the one we would have picked" for the pilot but added that parents earned that right through their aggressive lobbying and creative ideas.

That's interesting, as it has been abundantly clear that Committee II did not support in any way shape or form the aggressive lobbying and creative ideas the Gordon parents were putting forth. If anything such creativity was going to slow down the Gordon project from ever getting approval.

Could someone at the VSB also explain why:

• Vice Chair Carol Gibson, who sits on Committee II Planning and Facilities, at the last C-II meeting in June knew nothing of this pilot project initiative of the Premier?
• If the Ministry and VSB were working collaboratively and not politically, why did not Vice Chair Gibson in fact showed exasperation with the Gordon parents and let them know in very direct terms that she / the board / the committee could not be "blindsided" by mere parents going around the system.
• Why other schools with larger populations, higher heritage "value", in areas lacking community resources are not receiving serious consideration for a community hub pilot? Sir James Douglas Elementary comes to mind, one of Vancouver's largest elementary schools.

When news of these surprise pilot projects first broke we were told the VSB made the school choices, and that various factors including heritage value were part of the consideration.

Noted today on Vancouver Sun journalist Janet Steffenhagen's weblog:

Education Minister Shirley Bond, meanwhile, was sticking to her message. "The Vancouver Board of Education and the Province worked collaboratively to develop the Neighbourhoods of Learning pilot," she said in an email that arrived too late for my story. "The Vancouver Board of Education identified the three schools based on a number of factors including heritage status, the need for seismic upgrades and the community desire to see full use of these facilities."

While we already know this now not to be true thanks to VSB Chair Clarence Hansen's admission this weekend, lets look at the heritage value of Gordon and Queen Mary.

This is a ranking, most-valued to least, of Vancouver schools from a recently completed heritage assessment (attached at the end of this post). Note where Gordon and Queen Mary show up on the list:

25 Vancouver Technical Secondary
25 Strathcona Community
25 Kitsilano Secondary
23 Selkirk Elementary
23 L'École Bilingue Elementary
23 John Oliver Secondary
23 Hastings Elementary
23 Dickens Elementary
21 Thunderbird Elementary
21 Sexsmith Elementary
21 Point Grey Secondary
21 Macdonald Elementary
21 Grandview Elementary
21 Douglas Elementary
21 Champlain Heights Community
19 Tennyson Elementary
19 Templeton Secondary
19 South Hill Elementary
19 Shannon Park Annex
19 Secord Elementary
19 McBride Elementary
19 Lloyd George Elementary
19 Kingsford-Smith Elementary
17 Wolfe Elementary
17 Tecumseh Elementary
17 Shaughnessy Elementary
17 Seymour Elementary
17 Renfrew Elementary
17 Queen Mary Elementary <- QUEEN MARY
17 Queen Alexandra Elementary
17 Nightingale Elementary
17 Moberly Elementary
17 Mackenzie Elementary
17 MacCorkindale Elementary
17 Kitchener Elementary
17 Gladstone Secondary
17 Churchill Secondary
17 Cavell Elementary
17 Carr Elementary
15 University Hill Secondary
15 Roberts Elementary
15 Queen Elizabeth Elementary
15 Norquay Elementary
15 Mount Pleasant Elementary
15 Maple Grove Elementary
15 Livingstone Elementary
15 Kerrisdale Elementary
15 Hudson Elementary
15 Hamber Secondary
15 Franklin Elementary
15 False Creek Elementary
15 Douglas Annex
13 Grenfell Elementary
13 Gordon Elementary <- GORDON
11 Van Horne Elementary
09 Trafalgar Elementary

Gordon was never a heritage candidate, and in fact the Vancouver Heritage Commission had passed a resolution in June which freed the VSB from considering heritage value in the redevelopment of Gordon.

RESOLVED THAT, regarding the project at 2896 West 6th Avenue (General Gordon Elementary School), the Vancouver Heritage Commission supports option 3 (full replacement) as presented at the June 16, 2007, meeting, recognizing the relatively lower score of 13 out of 25, but regrets the potential loss of the General Gordon Elem School building.

Queen Mary wasn't even on the VSB's close-in radar. From the current Seismic Projects page on the VSB web site, here are the projects which are moving closer to approval. QM is absent. Parents there have quite rightly been among those lobbying for seismic upgrades for years. Rumours suggest parent political connections have played a role in getting QM moving forward now.

In 2004 Premier Campbell made a promise, which he repeated during the 2005 election campaign, to ensure B.C. schools were made seismically safe. Parents of this province are still waiting for these promises to be kept, as the pace of project starts is wholly inadequate.

What's worse is the process for determining project focus is completely broken, as this most recent episode between the Ministry of Education and the Vancouver School Board so clearly illustrates.

Politicians are playing games with the lives of our children.

Article: Vancouver Sun database shows many schools awaiting seismic repairs

Of the nearly 300 schools in B.C. considered to be at highest risk in the event of an earthquake, only 14 have had repairs completed. At 18 high-risk structures, upgrades are underway, and the rest of the 300 schools are waiting for their turns.

Database: How safe is your school? (Province-wide info)

Map: Completed and in-progress schools

VSB: Detailed seismic information for individual schools in district #39

A letter I wrote in August was recently published in our community newspaper, The Vancouver Courier. I'd responded to a front-page article where the subject focussed on whether we had "walkable" schools and the impact of location on environmental issues.

I found the article disappointing, seeing it as yet another distraction from what I consider Vancouver's most pressing facility problems. Broadly speaking Vancouver has plenty of schools. I pass within two blocks of seven schools on my walk to our kid's school two and a half kilometers away.

What we don't have are safe schools, specifically, seismically safe schools. An extract from the letter:

Seismic upgrades must take priority (Sept. 10 2008, The Courier)

But we have walkable schools today. What we don't have today are seismically safe schools to walk to. Many of our school facilities were unsafe the day they were built 50 or 100 years ago. School seismic safety ought to be our number one facility concern in this city yet isn't because of widespread public ignorance of the issue.

A truly sustainable facility management program is one that strives to ensure that buildings are not merely survivable but are also usable after an earthquake. We should support our school board by working with them, not against them, to push forward seismic mitigation projects at the fastest possible pace. We all can further support Vancouver and other affected school boards by calling upon the Ministry of Education and the premier to fully meet their government's commitments to complete seismic mitigation work within a decade.

Does it take an Olympic-style countdown clock to get this process finally on track?

Families for School Seismic Safety

May 13, 2008

Statement in response to earthquake in China

VANCOUVER — In response to the tragic news from China in the wake of the earthquake that struck the Sichaun province, Families For School Seismic Safety (FSSS) expresses its condolences to the victims and their families, and encourages all levels of government to act swiftly to ensure similar tragedies are prevented.

According to news reports, thousands are dead and thousands more are trapped in building collapses following the powerful 7.9 magnitude quake. News agencies are reporting several school collapses that killed hundreds of children and trapped even more.

FSSS formed after the 2002 Italian earthquake, which claimed the lives of 26 students. Parents were shocked to learn that while homes withstood the earthquake, it was the school that collapsed.

“These terrible tragedies can and must be prevented, and we know how to prevent them,” says FSSS director Nathan Lusignan. “We’d hoped we’d never hear news reports like this again — reports of children being buried in their collapsed schools. But since then, many more schools have collapsed and many children have perished. These are preventable tragedies. They should not happen.”

In 2005, the BC government identified more than 700 BC schools as requiring seismic upgrades. Progress, however, has been very slow and few schools have been completed. Thousands of BC students continue to spend their days in schools assessed as being at high risk of significant structural damage in the event of an earthquake.

FSSS urges all levels of government to take an integrated approach to ensuring schools are upgraded in a timely way and in a manner that provides the best possible educational facilities to safely and effectively service future generations of students.

“We need concrete plans and clear timelines to ensure the work gets done as promised,” says Lusignan.

What is truly tragic about this situation - and will be when, not if, Vancouver is hit by a major seismic event - is that school populations are disproportionately represented in casualties. Think about it - 55,000 Vancouver children head off to school each morning and a majority of the facilities are so seismically unsafe that you could not open a coffee shop in one without spending tens of millions of dollars. Many are turn of the century buildings; most were built long before seismic safety even began to be recognized in our building codes.

If you are a Vancouver area parent or citizen I urge you to make your voice heard on this issue. The primary culprit in the on-going delays is the B.C. government, not local school boards.

Attached is PDF file containing Ministry of Education Seismic Safety Assessments; in older municipalities, such as Vancouver, you'll find the majority of buildings are listed as Moderate or High risk of structural failure in the event of a significant seismic event.