Perspectives Blog

The Community School Model- Just Imagine!

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

The Community School Model- Just Imagine!

By David Chudnovsky

August 29, 2023

Imagine a small elementary school in a low income suburban community. The teachers are a mix of veterans and younger folks. It’s a really tough job as many of the students come to school hungry and have difficult home lives, but the teachers are enthusiastic and committed. Several of them have been teaching there for almost 30 years. They’ve all thought of looking for easier placements, but they can’t bring themselves to leave these kids.

There’s an evening program for adults – with courses in everything from belly dancing to introductory business skills to gymnastics – and there’s a ceramics studio with a kiln and slip and glazes that’s used by the kids during the day and adults at night.

Students work with a community curriculum developed by the teachers that reflects the experience of residents and neighbours.

Adult Basic Education classes are taught in a couple of empty classrooms during the day and in the kids’ classrooms in the evening – from basic literacy for people who can’t read or write to high school equivalency GED prep sessions. For more than 30 hours a week dozens of adults share the school with the elementary students.

A group of neighbourhood women meet in the school to organize a childcare centre and it’s just about to open in the community centre down the street.

A Community Newspaper is published four times a year through the school.

There’s a seniors group that meets monthly and organizes outings, and also arranges for older neighbours to volunteer in classrooms and interact with the elementary students.

In a portable in the parking lot behind the school is a re-entry program for teenagers who’ve been out of school for at least 6 months. The school recruits those students through local social service agencies, high school counselors and the media.

During the summer, a day camp runs using the school building and its facilities.

There’s a lunch program. Volunteers from the neighbourhood come into the school to make sandwiches or hot dogs – but it’s hard to get the money to make the program permanent.

There’s a community program run out of the school called Shape Up. A couple of the Shape Up staff will help you renovate your house, clean out your garage, landscape your backyard or do any one of hundreds of home improvement projects that keep getting put off. But residents have to contribute. Some help with the actual work of the project at their home. Some store the tools. Some make lunch and dinner for the workers. One guy sharpens and repairs the tools.

There’s an annual fundraising fair at the school, but it has to be scheduled for social assistance cheque week. If it isn’t, there’s no money to raise. But when it is, the whole neighbourhood participates, they have a great time, and some funds are raised to support the programs.

The School Board employs a teacher to organize and facilitate all of this, plus a night school monitor (paid for out of the fees for the night school courses), and a part time secretary. However, the real leadership is provided by a Community Board made up of neighbourhood folks who advise and decide on the various programs, advertise, and explain what’s going on at the school to their neighbours, and advocate to the School Board and other governments and agencies for the various programs and activities at the school. Some of them are parents of kids at the school. Some of them aren’t.

Sound good? A bit too good to be true? Pie in the sky? Not at all. That program – with a lot more elements – existed and flourished in a North Surrey neighbourhood for decades. I was lucky enough to be the Community School Coordinator – the teacher hired by the Board to run the Community School Program for close to ten years, and while it was a hard job, it was enormously exciting.

Neighbourhoods with Community Schools knew, and still know, that they are certainly cost effective, but more important, they build cooperation, educational and social success, and resilience.

The Community School model – with different characteristics in communities with different needs – came to an end in Surrey in the late 1980’s as a result of yet another budget crisis. But it still exists in some jurisdictions.

What a wonderful experience – using school resources and space to meet community needs. Those elementary school students learned so much from the range of people who themselves benefited from the school’s programs. The kids learned they were part of a community. They learned they could build and strengthen their neighborhood. They learned that seniors, and adults learning to read and write, and the fellow who lived down the street and sharpened tools, were all important parts of their lives. They learned what it means to be a citizen.

While you’re thinking about what was, imagine what could be. What if we added a Community Health Clinic and a Social Services Office to that Community School? What if the School Board meetings were held in each Community School once a year? What if the local First Nations were part of and the programs at the School?

What if School Boards and the Province really understood the value of schools as part of the wider community, understood schools as the building blocks of stronger and more resilient communities? Imagine a renaissance of Community Schools across BC.

Just imagine.

David Chudnovsky worked in nursery, elementary and secondary schools and at the university level in England, Ontario and BC during his 35-year teaching career. He is a past-president of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and was an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly in British Columbia Legislature from 2005-2009. David is co-author of the Charter for Public Education.

Perspectives Blog

Attention to Staffing Shortages Urgently Needed

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Attention to Staffing Shortages Urgently Needed

June 3, 2023

By Larry Kuehn

Teachers are frontline workers in the creation of the future. A teacher shortage is a hazard in developing that future and we are facing a teacher shortage in BC public schools.

The early warning indicators are already here. Community members without teacher qualifications are placed in some classrooms. A lack of teachers on call are available to fill in behind teachers away because of illness. Staff lose their planning time as they are pulled in to cover thousands of classes without their regular faculty member. Students with disabilities are sent home, deprived of their right to education because their specialist teachers are required to cover classes for missing colleagues.

Demand for teachers will only increase with a growing population and expanding expectations of the schools. The problems are already here and will explode into a crisis unless we act now. We need both immediate action and long-term planning and commitments.

How did we create this dilemma? It sometimes helps to look at how a problem starts to see how to get out of it.

A reduced demand for teachers in early years of the 21^st Century gave a false sense of the real need. School enrolments did decline for a few years. More significantly, the BC Liberal government in 2002 cut about 3000 teachers, eliminating by legislation staffing provisions in the teachers’ collective agreement. This contract stripping created a sudden teacher “surplus.”

This left a pool of qualified teachers as precarious workers. Part-time, moving from one school to another, being laid off every year, hoping to find a position for the next term. Even those with full-time positions worked for lower pay scales than teachers in most other provinces. Not surprisingly, some gave teaching up as a career while others who might have become educators looked elsewhere than teacher education.

The situation changed just as suddenly in 2016. The Supreme Court of Canada affirmed a lower court decision that the government in 2002 had violated the Charter rights of teachers in arbitrarily cancelling conditions that had been negotiated by the BC Teachers’ Federation. The class size and other staffing provisions were restored, returning education services that students had been deprived of.

With some 3000 teaching positions restored, all those precarious workers now had job offers—and there were not enough to fill the demand, let alone prepare for future needs.

The teacher shortage might have already received significant public attention except that it has had to compete with another crisis—the shortage of people in the health care system, as well as other areas crying about the need for workers.

The BC government has recognized these other demands and has provided funding for increased training positions in health care, technology, and trades. However, education has been an afterthought, if a thought at all.

What can be done to address this teacher shortage?

In the short term, we can look to the same place as is health care—immigrants who have been trained and, in some cases, have experience in the countries they have come from. This does not mean going to recruit elsewhere—that has its own shortages—but people who have already immigrated, often with their education and training being a major factor in why they were accepted as immigrants. When they arrived, they discovered that their qualifications aren’t accepted and there is a long and expensive road to getting recognized. Reducing the red tape would help a bit and some progress is being made in that.

The longer term solution is clear—train more teachers and make the job more attractive to retain those who join the profession.

Some progress in making the profession more attractive has been made with the pay increases recently negotiated by the BCTF. Many of the problems, though, will not be solved until there are enough teachers so that everyone can count on a replacement by a qualified substitute when they are away ill. They will not be solved until we stop grabbing the special needs teacher away from their students or the librarian from the library to cover the classroom teacher who is away. And the teacher shortage will not be over until every student has a qualified teacher—not someone with no training–meeting their educational needs.

It is past time for the government to recognize that public education, like health care, requires urgent attention to staffing shortages.

To meet current demands, and to be prepared for increased demands for teachers in the future, the BC government must place a priority on increasing the number of places in universities for teacher education candidates. And it must provide financial support so that future teachers don’t have to add on to student debt in order to make their contributions as front-line workers in the creation of the future.

Larry Kuehn is a member of the IPE/BC Board of Directors and chair of the Research and Programs Committee. He is a research associate for the CCPA and retired BCTF Director of Research and Technology. He has written extensively on education matters including funding, globalization, technology and privacy.

Perspectives Blog

Stretched to the Limit

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Stretched to the Limit

April 25, 2023

By Moira Mackenzie

Public education is not broken; funding is.

This message was woven through the presentations and discussion at the recent IPE/BC forum, Stretched to the Limit” with each of the featured speakers putting the pressures on K-12 and post-secondary education into perspective. The forum featured:

Annabree Fairweather, Executive Director, CUFA BC,
Tracy Humphries, Executive Director, BCEdAccess, and
Andree Gacoin, Director of Information, Research, and International Solidarity, BCTF.

While the speakers spoke from very different vantage points, they all underscored the urgent need for a well-supported, accessible, and inclusive education system at all levels

Annabree began by talking about the provincial government’s current post-secondary funding model review which has as its objectives a fair and impartial funding model, alignment with education and skills training needs, and the expansion of supports to students to ensure success. In the government’s own words, the current model has created constraints and inequities, a perspective with which Annabree wholeheartedly agreed. Further, she explained the unnecessarily convoluted and overly complex set of legislation and regulations that govern the post-secondary system in BC which, when coupled with chronic underfunding, leads the institutions to compete for very limited resources.

It certainly was concerning to hear that the share of GDP directed to post-secondary education in BC is less than that in all other provinces in Canada except Ontario. Additionally, much of the funding that does come in has specific strings attached and those strings do not necessarily match the core academic mission. Moreover, there has also been an increasing reliance on private funding, with a corresponding decline of nearly ten percent in government grants between 2006 and 2020. Annabree shone the light on the fact that this decline has led to risky decisions to seek varied sources of private dollars, which in turn has deprioritized the academic mission in favour of sponsored research. Additionally, it has fed the phenomenon of a burgeoning administration rather than a much needed increase in faculty to keep pace with the growth in student enrollment. Further, Annabree pointed out the folly in relying on revenue from international students to bolster budgets, as was made abundantly clear when the COVID pandemic diminished that revenue stream.

As part of the funding review, CUFA-BC has published Funding for Success: Post Secondary Education in BC, an excellent series of briefs outlining the problems and proposing solutions. Despite the significant challenges, Annabree expressed a hope that the funding review and the lessons learned during the pandemic, including the importance of a stable, well funded post-secondary system, will help to bring about much needed change. She also stressed the importance of developing strong alliances between the K-12 and the post-secondary sectors, and wisdom of well funded and well supported education at all levels and for all students.

Andrée began her presentation by referencing the work of Sam Abrams, Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University. The prevailing conditions for privatization that he identified are at play in BC today, including the impossible expectation that public schools continue to do more and more with less and less, the commercial mindset in managing public education, the bureaucratic pathologies, and the cultivated message that there is a crisis in education independent of the impact of chronic underfunding.

While successive governments in BC have frequently claimed funding is at the highest level ever, the fact is that the percentage of GDP spent on public education has been in significant decline. In 2001, BC allocated 2.8% to public schools while by 2021, it had reached an all-time low of 1.7%. Had the percentage even just remained steady throughout this period, there would have been an additional $2 billion more in school board budgets. Excessive cost-cutting, as Andree stated, is baked into the current structure of the funding model. We see this at play in yet another round of budget preparation this spring as numerous school boards are considering cuts once again, a reality that was simply not addressed in the provincial budget tabled and touted by the province in February.

Andree reported that the BCTF recently surveyed its members-the public school teachers and associated professionals in BC. A staggering 40% of respondents said they’d leave teaching in the next two years, citing exhaustion and burnout attributed to the absence of supports, the overcrowding in classes and lack of meaningful in-service. Teachers also spoke about the health and safety issues they face and the impact of so many impossible challenges on their mental health.

Of particular note, Andrée stressed, is the fact that the government’s commitment to inclusive education has yet to be matched with the requisite funding. Boards of Education have had to spend more on special education than they receive from the province and the austerity pressures have led to rationing of special education services and an inadequate level of specialist support. What’s urgently needed is a funding model that addresses the diverse needs of students, schools and school districts along with a funding paradigm based in a strong collective vision of what public education should be. Returning to the issue of privatization, Andrée was clear- we can’t separate the funding crisis from privatization trends, trends that will only serve to undermine our valued public school system.

Tracy spoke further about the support required to meet students’ complex learning needs. She was very clear that the current lack of adequate support leads to exclusion not inclusion. She has direct experience with the issues and, in her role with BCEdAccess, has spoken to many parents who feel their kids are not welcome in public schools. Due to underfunding and lack of appropriate supports, many students are being excluded from public schools and the full and appropriate range of learning experiences that should be available to them. BCEdAccess has been tracking incidents of exclusions and now has four years of data to illustrate the impact on students and their families, including the finding that students with multiple marginalized identities are much more likely to be excluded. Linking back to the issue of underfunding, Tracy shared that the exclusions are also more likely to happen when unmanageable conditions, lack of support and burnout prevail. None-the-less, she stated emphatically, “Our kids have a right to quality, inclusive public education.”

Additionally, Tracy reminded the forum participants of the changes to the special education category designations made by the provincial government in 2001 and never rectified. These changes resulted in the removal of supplementary funding to support the many students with identified high incidence needs. While the number of designations then dropped markedly and the supports diminished, the students’ special or diverse learning needs did not, of course, leaving many educators unsure of how to best support these students and without the appropriate means to do so.

Tracy was clear about the steps that need to be taken. The government needs to urgently address funding levels and support for all students and our public schools. She stressed that there should be a more holistic approach and coherent links between pre-school, K-12, and post-secondary education. We need to amplify the message that a quality, accessible and inclusive public education system is of great worth to our society as a whole. It should be valued and supported independent of the needs of the marketplace. “There are kids for whom a job may never be a possibility,” said Tracy, “but that does not mean that education is not valuable to them, and that the system does not gain value from having them there.”

Annabree, Andrée and Tracy clearly struck a chord with everyone in attendance as the discussions continued well after adjournment. IPE/BC is very grateful to each of them for their thoughtful and informative presentations and for fueling a renewed commitment to supporting our public schools.

Moira Mackenzie is a member of the Board of IPE/BC and long time advocate for quality, accessible, inclusive public education. She taught in BC public schools for many years at the primary and intermediate levels, and as a Resource & Learning Assistance teacher. Moira, who is now retired, also served in a number of elected and appointed roles within the teachers’ federation.

Perspectives Blog

Do school board elections matter?

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Do school board elections matter?

September 19, 2022

By Patti Bacchus

Do school board elections really matter? That depends. Too often B.C.’s school boards are ineffective and they’ve lost the power to levy taxes or bargain directly with the employee groups on key issues. Many simply rubber stamp management recommendations and happily cash their modest pay cheques and do little to represent their constituents at the board table. One could fairly argue that school boards are the worst form of governance, and they are, with the exception of all the others.

But yes, democratically elected school boards matter. They matter because effective trustees who take the role seriously and courageously can make a real difference in improving, or even protecting, educational opportunities and supports for students. We need far more of those kind of trustees, and it’s up to all of us to find them and support them, whether we have kids in the system or not.

It’s often said that public education is the cornerstone of democracy. It is, and it’s also essential to a healthy, prosperous and just society.

Vibrant and effective school boards, where respectful debate is informed and encouraged, and where all voices are permitted to be heard and access to trustees is open, are a key component of a high-functioning and successful school system. By most measures, Canada’s public schools are remarkably successful and produce good results in return for what the public invests in them. Do school boards have anything to do with this? I believe they do, at least in some cases.

Unfortunately, many B.C. school boards are moving away from that model with increasingly restrictive codes of conduct that limit trustees from speaking out and engaging with those they’re elected to serve. Many have erected rigid barriers that discourage and restrict public participation. Too many take direction from their management teams, instead of the reverse. Far too much of the public’s business —and school board business is the public’s business — happens behind closed doors or in private emails instead of in public meetings, where it belongs.

If they want to matter to the public, school boards need to give themselves a hard shake and decide whether they want to do the important work of transparently representing the public in decision-making, or keep fussing about each other’s decorum or conduct as they head down the road to extinction.

We get our chance to vote for school trustees this October 15, when we elect mayors, city councillors and school trustees. It’s worth taking the time to learn about who is running and what they stand for, and make sure those who truly care about public education get elected to office.

What do school boards do?

School boards have a co-governance relationship with the provincial government over the public education system. Curriculum is set provincially, and decisions about class sizes are negotiated at the provincial level. The B.C. School Act broadly states school boards are “responsible for improvement of student achievement in the school district.”

In practice, one of the most important functions of school boards is hiring and overseeing their superintendent of schools, who is also the district’s chief executive officer (CEO). The superintendent is the only employee who reports directly to the board, and is responsible for carrying out the board’s directions and ensuring the district and schools are run in compliance with the School Act and collective agreements with employee groups, all while staying within tight budgets. A superintendent who understands the values and priorities of the board, and is committed to carrying them out, is critical to a successful school district.

It’s also the job of elected school trustees to represent the public in decision making and advocating for the needs of their district. Some do this very well. Others do not.

In addition to trying to “improve student achievement”, elected school boards are responsible for developing a wide range of policies and making decisions about opening or closing schools (in reality, government mostly decides if school are opened, via whether or not they decide to fund new schools) and which choice or special needs programs go where. They also set “catchment” boundaries, which dictate which school students have priority access to in their neighbourhood, although there’s no guarantee being in catchment means you get a space in your local school.

Trustees who succumb to government and management pressure to close schools and sell off school lands, which we’ve seen in many B.C. school districts, can cause lasting harm to their districts if they don’t carefully consider the long-term implications of such decisions.

School trustees also approve their annual budgets, and ideally, give direction to management regarding budget priorities.

Who can be a school trustee?

Any Canadian citizen who is over 17 and has lived in B.C. for at least six months is eligible to run, with a few exceptions, including school district employees, who can not run in the district the work in. From there, voters decide, unless there are no other candidates and the candidate is acclaimed.

What’s the job really like?

Some trustees show up for monthly meetings and cast a few votes and go home. They may attend a few school events throughout the year.

Fortunately that’s a minority. I served eight years on the Vancouver School Board (VSB), and was chair for six of those. Many days started before dawn with live radio interviews and reading and replying to hundreds of emails. I would visit schools and attend meetings during the day, and spend afternoons preparing for evening meetings. My district had two formal board meetings a month in my day, along with five standing committees that met monthly, various briefing workshops and other internal and external committees where I represented the board as a liaison trustee, and frequent community events and speaking engagements.

Many trustees hold day jobs and simply can’t commit the kind of time others can, and smaller districts usually have fewer meetings and time demands.

I also spent a lot of time advocating for the needs of my district through the news and social media, and in in-person meetings, which I believe all trustees should do.

It was a tough role to be in, but I felt honoured voters gave me the opportunity to do it. A vibrant, well-resourced public-education system is key to addressing many of the challenges we face. Trustees can play a significant role in supporting and protecting it.

What to look for in trustee candidates

Those of us who keep an eye on B.C. School Boards often shake our heads at the ineffectiveness and dysfunction of some of them. Too many simply rubber stamp management recommendations and sign off on inadequate budgets, leaving students without the support they need to succeed.

Advocacy is hard work and can feel futile, but it does make a difference. Each year I chaired the VSB I made sure we presented a compelling case for increased funding to the provincial finance committee when it did its annual public consultation. My board collaborated with parents and employee groups to raise awareness about the need to invest in schools and to support the people who work in them.

We took time to communicate clearly to the public about how various provincial government policies were affecting classrooms and the supports and programs available for students. We worked alongside parents and other advocates to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in provincial funding to replace or upgrade seismically unsafe schools (yet, there are still many waiting for funding). We brought in ground-breaking policy updates to make schools safe and welcoming for students, staff and families of all gender identities. We made a difference.

As trustee elections approach, it’s important to find and support candidates who are passionate about the importance of public education

and are willing to stand up for it. We need trustees who understand the role and are willing to use it effectively, not just warm a seat at the board table.

That’s not always easy, but if they’re not willing to do the hard work they shouldn’t be running.

Look for school trustees candidates who are committed to making themselves accessible to their constituents and opening as many channels of communication as possible. If you’re going to represent the public, you need to hear from them. Trustees need to remember that once they’re elected, especially if they’re told they shouldn’t meet with groups of individuals, speak to reporters or engage with the public and social media (this, apparently, has been happening in several school districts).

School boards are an endangered species

School boards are a creation of provincial legislation and can be abolished. It’s happened in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec. Prince Edward Island tried getting rid of them, and now they’re bringing them back. Manitoba came very close to eliminating them, but backed off. For now.

I confess they are times I feel we should scrap ours, like when the Victoria School Board took it upon themselves to essentially oust two elected trustees — who were known for speaking out on behalf of students, parents and Indigenous communities — from the board table for the remainder of their term. That’s a huge overreach: voters should be the ones to decide who sits at the table, not other trustees.

Trustee elections are fast approaching. Don’t take elected school boards for granted. Find and support candidates who are passionate about public education and are willing to roll up their sleeves and fight for it. It matters.

Patti Bacchus is an IPE/BC Fellow and dedicated public education advocate and commentator. She was the Vancouver School Board’s longest serving chairperson (2008-2014). Patti believes that a strong and well-resourced public education system is key to a healthy and just society.

Perspectives Blog

Moving beyond resistance to privatization

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Moving beyond resistance to privatization

June 28, 2022

by Andrée Gacoin

What is the commercial mindset in public education? How do you see the commercial mindset in your school or district? What does privatization look like in your classroom? What does it mean to work together to resist the privatization of public education?

These are questions that 15 teachers, as well as invited guests from the Institute for Public Education, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Ed Access, and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, engaged with as part of a day long think tank organised by the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) . The “Think Tank” is a methodology used by the BCTF as a form of activist research. Following Jones (2018), activist research is a “framework for conducting collaborative research that makes explicit challenges to power through transformative action” (p. 27). As such, the event aimed to create an interactive research space enabling dialogue and connection between teachers, academic or community stakeholders, and the union.

Resist…reclaim and rebuild

The Think Tank was structured to first identify key facets of privatization in British Columbia and then facilitate the development of strategies for action and resistance. The day’s conversations were interpreted in a visual mural, created by Sam Bradd of Drawing Change (see https://drawingchange.com/), a network of graphic recorders who listen, synthesize, and visually represent dialogue in real time.

The theoretical framing of the day was provided by Dr. Sam E. Abrams (2018), Director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teacher’s College, Columbia University.

Dr. Abrams offers a way to analyse how the “commercial mindset” underpins the privatization of education and allows private interests to drive the direction of public education. For Abrams, this mindset has four key dimensions. Firstly, the libertarian critique is premised on the need for small government and doing the “minimum” within public services. Secondly, the drive towards commercial profit allows business models to be introduced into the provision of public education services. Thirdly, a sense of crisis creates the need for solutions to “fix” public education. Finally, public services are mired in a bureaucratic pathology which opens the way for external “solutions” by private “experts.”

Through discussion, the participants in the Think Tank took the mindset offered by Dr. Abrams into the lived realities of lived realities of privatization within public education. Their insights are organized around the key facets of the commercial mindset, while recognizing that they are continually overlapping and building on one another.

As highlighted in this IPE Occasional Paper, participants in the Think Tank theorized and developed, from the perspectives of BC teachers, strategies not only to resist privatization, but also reclaim and rebuild public education.

Changing the narrative

As schools look toward post-pandemic recovery, teacher unions and researchers are at a crucial junction in the defense of public education. Schools are key public spaces of collective learning and community care for children and youth. Privatization, in contrast, privileges individual and financial interests and undermines education as a public good.

Privatisation discourses position teachers as passive providers educational services. The BCTF Think Tank on Privatization provided a space for teachers to speak back to that assumption, weaving together a theoretical understanding of privatisation with their lived realities in classrooms and schools. This allowed space for concrete, teacher-led recommendations and actions for political organising and advocacy.

More broadly, the interactive research space created through the Think Tank offers a unique model for how academic and union researchers can work collaboratively. Unions, and the teachers they represent, are often framed as “sources” of data. For instance, the BCTF is frequently approached to circulate surveys created by external researchers, or to help recruit teachers as participants for interviews or focus groups. The Think Tank as a form of activist research foregrounds the voices and experiences of teachers and facilitates a shift from research on teachers to research with teachers, working together to fight for education as an equitably delivered public good.

Dr. Andrée Gacoin is the Director of the Information, Research and International Solidarity Division at the BC Teachers’ Federation and an IPE/BC Fellow. Her research focuses on developing a unique, in-depth and contextualized exploration of education in BC from the perspective of teachers. Andrée is particularly interested in using research as advocacy to uphold and strengthen an inclusive public education system.

Perspectives Blog

Renaming Your School as an Act of Reconciliation

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Renaming Your School as an Act of Reconciliation

May 21, 2022

by Moira Mackenzie

Imagine your children researching their school’s namesake and discovering that the person being celebrated actively promoted racism and campaigned on white supremacy. Richard McBride, for whom the school was named, was BC’s Premier from 1903 to 1915. He introduced policies to disenfranchise immigrants and persons of colour and worked to remove lands from Indigenous people. Additionally, he was a leading anti-suffrage politician who steadfastly opposed women’s voting rights throughout his career. Jen Arbo and Cheryl Sluis, parents of past and current Richard McBride Elementary School students, can speak to this experience and what they set about to do about it.

Jen, Chris, and Sam Killawep, a secondary school student, were members the panel featured in the online seminar, “Renaming your school as an act of reconciliation,” recently sponsored by the BC Teachers’ Federation. The panel, moderated by BCTF President Teri Mooring, also included Peggy Janicki, who holds a seat designated for an Aboriginal teacher on the BCTF Executive Committee, and Brian Coleman, the chairperson of the BCTF Aboriginal Education Advisory Committee. Teri opened the session by describing official name changes as small but important steps in reconciliation and decolonization. She reflected on the impact of names on our understanding of people, place, and history, asking, “Whose lives and history do we honour and whose do we erase?”

With the former Richard McBride Elementary School in New Westminster, the timing for a name was particularly fortuitous as the old school was deemed seismically unsafe and was being rebuilt. Initially the parents were told that there was no opportunity to rename the school, however they didn’t stop there. When the research on Richard McBride was shared, the Parent Advisory Council passed a motion to request a change in name. The New Westminster Board of Education had introduced a comprehensive new procedure on renaming of schools and, just two days after receiving the PAC request, set up a renaming committee for the school.

The Board’s Re-naming School and District Facilities procedure provides an excellent framework to assess the need for a change and engage in an inclusive process to determine a new name. It affirms the district’s commitment to reconciliation and decolonization, and states that a name change will be considered “where the existing name is deemed to no longer be serving the needs of the school population of the community and no longer aligns with the district’s core values and strategic priorities.” When a proposal to change a school’s name is approved, a committee is established and charged with conducting the process and recommending a new name to the Board. The committee will consist of a trustee, a District Aboriginal Coordinator, a Director of Instruction or Associate Superintendent, a representative from each of the PAC, New West Principal and Vice Principal’s Association, CUPE, and the New Westminster Teachers’ Union, up to two Indigenous members, up to two members of the local community, and up to three student advisory members.

Once in place, the committee for the Richard McBride Elementary name change established a very thorough and thoughtful process, developing criteria, consulting extensively with the First Nations community leaders and local language keepers, and inviting proposals. A rubric was developed to assess the many suggestions, asking such important questions as, “Does it honor the local history and the land? Does it align with district values? Do students to engage with it?”

After nearly a year of work, the committee came to a unanimous decision to propose that the school be named Skwo:wech, which is the Halq’eméylem word for “sturgeon.” The name is particularly significant given the connection with the Fraser River and the importance of sturgeon to Indigenous communities who traveled up and down the river.

When asked what learning was most important to the entire process, Jen Arbo shared that the process can generate discomfort, it can be messy, and involves learning through a real world example of reconciliation. “It’s good. Accept it, verbalize it and work through it,” she advised.

Cheryl echoed the importance of sitting with the discomfort. “It’s healthy, “she concluded, “As a white person, I was hesitant but, once I saw what kids were seeing, it was not possible not to do something.” Now she sees the impact of the new name as well. “There is so much learning taking place, learning about the geography, history, language and the land.”

Noting that the plaque at the former Richard McBride Elementary was silent on the racist history, Sam noted that students learn so much from what’s around them. He remarked on his own learning in the process of serving on the committee and spoke to the importance of incorporating Indigenous languages. He reminded participants that students are living through the education system; they are capable and want to be fully involved.

In speaking to the paradigm shift necessary in decolonization, Peggy Janicki underscored the fact that Indigenous languages were deliberately, not accidentally, endangered. It was not only the only the words, but also the sounds of the languages that were erased. She spoke about the power of reflecting their lives and language back to Indigenous children in their schools and the world around them.

Brian Coleman described the name change, Richard McBride to Skwo:wech, as learning from the past, consulting in the present and looking to the future. He spoke about the essential importance of relationships and the need to give time to the process. “You don’t just choose a name; the name will choose you. You’ll know. Like the process, it will be long-lasting and meaningful, “ he said.

What made the process so successful in New Westminster? The panelists agreed that there was not one factor alone. The rebuilding of the school presented a good opportunity for a new name. The PAC was strong, the community was involved, the Board put clear procedures in place and the committee had the capacity to do the work. Their advice was clear: advocate with school trustees and ensure that the Board adopts a commitment to reconciliation and puts a formal name change procedure is put in place.

Skwo:wech Elementary, home to more than four hundred students, opened in its brand-new, beautiful building this spring. As the school board stated, “It’s a name that we’re proud to move forward with, that came from a process that involved a great deal of collaboration and learning already, with more opportunities to build on for years to come.”

While renaming a school is just one step in the necessary process of reconciliation and decolonization, it’s one that can have a significant impact for generations to come. Taking the time to research the names that currently mark the public schools and other sites around us is an important first step.

More information on Richard McBride Elementary becoming Skwo:wech Elementary is available through the following links:

A new name with meaningNew Westminster Schools – District 40 (newwestschools.ca)

New West district gets set to rename Richard McBride School

Have your say on renaming Richard McBride Elementary School

Goodbye Richard McBride. Hello Skwo:wech Elementary

Perspectives Blog

The Urgent Need to Tackle Racism

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

The Urgent Need to Tackle Racism

by Noel Herron

Last August, the BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner launched the first ever public inquiry into hate crimes in BC. In announcing this important step, a year-long thorough investigation, Commissioner Kasari Govender noted that, since early 2020, there has been a significant increase in reported hate-related incidents. “It is critical for all of us to be better prepared to prevent and respond to hate during global health, economic and social crises to protect our human rights during turbulent times,” stated Govender.

The 19 months of the pandemic in B.C. have witnessed almost weekly incidents and events that point to the surge of racism both at a local and a provincial level, some minor, others with wider implications for sectors such as health, policing, education, sports, and politics. This very serious issue affects not just BC but the entire country. Yet, it was deeply disturbing that it was largely ignored during the recent federal election campaign. This, while we bore witness to the traumatic discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of First Nations children at residential school sites.

Provincially, BC has appointed Rachna Singh as Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives with the promise to introduce anti-racism legislation in the next session of the legislature. A public consultation is currently underway. Thinking of public education, that legislation will have to have considerable strength and impact to ensure that racism is tackled in a comprehensive and meaningful way across the province.

What steps have been taking place in education over the past year? On the opening day of the 2021/22 school year, the Vancouver School Board had an online anti-racism training session for all teachers and principals. It followed racist incidents that were brought to light by students and parents who had the courage to speak out and use the BC human rights process. That’s one positive step; however, it took the five separate parties that are currently represented on the board a full year to agree to implement this long overdue initiative. There is so much more to be done.

Last February, the BC School Trustees’ Association followed up on motions carried by the BCSTA Provincial Council the previous year and appealed to the provincial government to provide the additional support needed to implement systemic change in school districts across the province. Acknowledging that some steps had been taken, the BCSTA pressed for comprehensive plans to address the issue.

In August, we learned about a report, mandated by the BC Minister of Education, that found “clearly discriminatory and systemically racist” behaviours and practices in a B.C. school district and called for a province-wide review. This report on School District 57 provided a profile involving one school district. However, retired judge, currently academic director of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of B.C, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond agreed that a deeper probe is needed, stating, “This report was very helpful, but it certainly struck me as a kind of tip-of-the-iceberg report.”

BC’s reckoning with racism is long overdue and we all have a role to play. The creation of a truly inclusive, just, respectful, and caring society needs urgent attention from all levels of government-local provincial and federal. Additionally, it is incumbent on each of us to speak out against racism and, in the context of our all-important public education system, insist that all schools and school districts are modeling the society we seek.

Noel Herron is a retired principal, former Vancouver school trustee and past member of the Vancouver School District Race Relations Committee. He has a long and highly respected career in public education and is well known for his deep commitment to the well-being of students in general and to the needs of marginalized and racialized children and youth, in particular. While principal, Noel served on the Vancouver School District Committee on Racial Justice; he expresses his gratitude to the many race relations consultants and anti-racism advocates he worked with and learned from throughout his career.

Perspectives Blog

FOI Fees Reduce Public Access to Information

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

FOI Fees Reduce Public Access to Information

By Larry Kuehn

Freedom of Information is important to the public in public education. Unfortunately, British Columbia is headed in the wrong direction in proposed changes to Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) in the fall 2021 legislature.

Education policies have significant affects on individuals and the society as a whole and should be open to debate and reconsideration. Informed debate on policies can only take place if the relevant information is publicly available. This requires transparency on the part of government and local school authorities.

Too often policies are announced without adequate information about why a choice was made and what alternatives may have been considered. As a researcher and policy advocate, I have in the past asked for information of ministries to understand the basis for a decision–and been told I can only have the information by making a Freedom of Information request.

Frequently this information should simply be provided on request—or even published on the web without a request because it is relevant to public policy. Officials are reluctant to provide the information because it may lead to questioning of policies. If the information is provided because of an FOI request, the official can say they had no choice but to provide it and are less likely to be blamed for a public questioning of a policy decision using ministry information.

The FOI process as it exists is often problematic. One needs to understand precisely what to ask for. The information is supposed to be provided within 30 days, but extensions are more and more frequently requested. You can be told that extensive research is required, and you will have to pay for it. Or you get a document with much of the crucial information redacted.

To provide a specific example, the BC Teachers’ Federation recently requested of the Ministry of Education through FOI the research on which claims are made in a public brochure about the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA). The response from the Ministry was that it would cost at least $8,000 to document the research. [1]

If policies are made on the basis of research, any legitimate research protocol would require that it be documented with at least a bibliography. That type of information should be available on request without even going to FOI. If the policies are not based on research but some other basis, that should be the response, not retroactively doing the research at the cost of the group requesting the information.

All of this is to say that the FOI process should be revised to make it easier to use and to make information more transparent without having to file a formal request. Unfortunately, instead of improving the system, the legislation adds another impediment to its use—charging a fee for each request.

Charging a fee has only one possible purpose—to reduce the number of requests. The cost of collecting the fee is likely to be at least as much as the fee provides, so it won’t help cover government expenses. This will have the impact of making government less transparent. This applies to the provincial government, but also to School Boards and other public bodies that are covered by the legislation.

Individuals will be less likely to file a request if they have to pay a fee, especially, like most of us, they are not experts at formulating a request in a way that will get the information they are looking for and might have to file multiple requests to get the information necessary.

The Privacy Commissioner has raised the alarm that BC is moving backward in Freedom of Information, rather than moving to improve legislation that was dated and needed updating to improve, not reduce, the public right to know. Everyone concerned about this backward move should let the government know the legislation is going in the wrong direction.

[1] Communication received by the British Columbia Teachers Federation on April 8, 2021, in regard to Request for Documents EDU-2021-10662.

Perspectives Blog

Claims about education costs mislead by ignoring social and educational changes

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Claims about education costs mislead by ignoring social and educational changes

by Larry Kuehn

A claim about the history of funding of public education by UBC professor Jason Ellis is seriously misleading by omitting the context of changes that have taken place in education over the past fifty years. He has published an article in which he claims there has been an increase in spending on BC public education between 1970 and 2020 that he calculates as 250%. This increase is described as “astounding” according to Ellis, as quoted in a UBC press release, although he doesn’t use that phrase in his academic article.

Unfortunately, the article is an overly simplistic comparison of gross expenditures inflation adjusted with the number of students without looking at the changing expectations of education over five decades, the way the public schools have adjusted to meet those, and the very real costs of those changes. Ellis ignores the complexity when he says, “After all, if we are talking about how much we spend on K-12 schools, it surely matters how far those dollars stretch. That is mainly a question of how many students public schools need to educate at any given point in time.” (Ellis, p. 104) In fact, costs are a factor of not just how many students you have, but also the changing and diverse nature of student needs and what you offer them in the way of service and conditions.

The study chooses an arbitrary date as the baseline, without identifying the context of the system at that time and the rationale for improvements in conditions and thus expenditures since then. The language of the article reflects a bias toward “cost control” and “fiscal discipline” and an opposition to the collective bargaining rights of teachers. The rationale for the article in the end seems to be a challenge to those who see the limitations on education expenditure as based on neoliberal ideology when the facts actually support claims of those who see neoliberal policies as having a negative impact on educational expenditures.

The educational conditions in the baseline of 1970

The choice of a baseline can have a significant effect—if one chooses a low point, then the increases seem greater–and 1970 was a low point for several reasons.

The number of students grew rapidly in the 1960s, but the system did not keep up with that growth. The W.A.C. Bennett Social Credit government had a priority on building dams for hydro and other infrastructure development rather than schools and in the late 1960s had introduced policies, including a school referendum system, to limit school district expenditures.

Double shifts were common, where two schools were run within one building, an early shift until mid-day and another in the afternoon until evening. Many schools had to be built at this time, but Ellis acknowledges that the amount in his 1970 baseline does not include capital costs of building schools, but those cost are included for the period after 1974.

Class sizes were large as well. B.C. had the largest classes in Canada in 1970, except for Newfoundland. The BC Teachers’ Federation ran a campaign at the time to limit class sizes to 40, an indication of the conditions, a situation that not only teachers but also parents would not find acceptable now. There were significant reductions in pupil-teacher ratios and class sizes in the 1970s, catching up with the limitations that existed in 1970. None of these improvements in the 1970s were the result of teachers’ collective bargaining since the legal framework at the time only allowed for negotiation of salaries and benefits.

The school system in 1970 was also much more elitist and exclusionary. While now we are not satisfied if fewer than 90% of students complete graduation, it was half that fifty years ago. Students with special needs were not included, few programs existed for students whose first language was not English, many Indigenous students were in Residential “Schools,” and many of the Indigenous students in the public system were marginalized and actively discouraged from staying after age 16. Being inclusive in addressing all these needs takes people and resources. Very few would be satisfied with the education system we offered in 1970. In fact, many would require more of our current system, not expecting that this could be achieved on 1970 funding levels.

Many teachers who retired before 1970 lived on pensions that left them in poverty. Governments in the previous fifty years had been unwilling to provide the financing for an adequate pension system, a situation that was finally addressed in the 1970s and beyond—at a necessary cost.

The teaching force in 1970 had much lower overall levels of qualifications that have been continually increasing over the decades. In 1970 many teachers at the elementary level had entered teaching with one year of university and a year of teacher education. Most of them increased their qualifications over time, often with many years of summer university courses. In contrast, now very few enter the profession with less than a degree as well as teacher education. At least a third of current teachers have a master’s degree or a diploma beyond their bachelor’s degree and teacher education. These qualifications reflect an ability to deal with a much more complex set of educational needs—and legitimately get reflected in increased costs.

Yes, costs have increased, as they have in most things. The percentage they have increased depends not just on what the costs are, but also the baseline on which you are making the comparisons. If you choose the baseline that is a low point, it will appear that the increase is greater—and after 1970 was a point when a lot of pent-up demands were increasing on the public education system in B.C.

The conservative framing of the article

Some of Ellis’s language draws from a source frequently referenced in the article, Thomas Fleming, a conservative B.C. education historian. Fleming’s ideal of education is based in what he calls the “imperial” age of education in B.C. when education policy was determined by the education officials in the ministry (then Department) of education. This handful of men (and they were always men) could determine policy for the system and carry it out through a network of inspectors. It could keep costs under control and keep the system narrowly focused on academic purposes, not the broader social demands.

Fleming acknowledged that pressure was growing in the system in the 1960s to expand the mandate and the services of the schools, even as the enrolment was growing dramatically, and women were becoming restive over their subservient role in the system. Fleming defines 1972 as the break point in the system with the election of the New Democrat government and the active role of the BCTF in the election. The ministry officials lost control and the system was open to influence by politicians, teachers through the BCTF and what he calls special interests—parents making demands for their children and social activists calling for marginalized groups to have their needs met. All these new demands on the system would require more resources.

Calling for a return to a narrower, less inclusive education system doesn’t have any credence. The public does not want the system to do less, but to do more of whatever particular concern they have. This is confirmed every time budget limitations lead to services being cut. Fleming tried to influence a call for a narrower system focus on the academic as an editor of the 1988 Royal Commission on Education Report, but was frustrated by the lack of response of the system to that recommendation. If a direct call to cut what the system does would not work, another approach is to call for reduced costs so it is not able to do as much.

Here is where Ellis picks up Fleming’s approach using the language of “rein in educational spending” (p. 102); “cost control” (p. 102, 110, 111, 117, 118); “controlling spending” (p. 102, 113, 114); “impose spending limits” (p. 118); “fiscal discipline” (p. 113). Fleming is particularly critical of the BCTF influence in public education, beginning at the point that it became active in the 1972 election, and particularly after achieving collective bargaining rights in 1988 and Ellis adopts Flemings negative perspective on teacher bargaining. Fleming’s ideal was the “old boys network” of the education department that many BCTF leaders were a part of before the change in the organization about 1970.

Although Ellis contends that “saying that spending is up considerably is not saying it should not have increased. It is not saying that spending should not rise further in the future.” (p. 118) In only focusing on how much the expenditures have grown and not addressing the purposes of the increases or the services provided, and calling the increases “astounding”, Ellis plays into those who would use cost control to narrow educational offerings and who will use the headlines from his study to support their aims.

Reference

Ellis, Jason. (2021) “A Short History of K-12 Public School Spending in British Columbia, 1970-2020.” Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 196, 102-123.

Perspectives Blog

Accountability for BC Schools: A Charter Compact for British Columbians

Perspectives is an opportunity for Fellows and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays. IPE/BC Fellows hold a range of views and interests relative to public education.

Accountability for BC Schools: A Charter Compact for British Columbians

by Dr. Dan Laitsch

Accountable to whom and for what?

In some form this question has been asked of our institutions since at least the early 1700s. In the context of today’s public schools, the question is of particular importance.

Public schools are faced with a wide array of accountability demands. For example, many educators feel a responsibility to the fields in which they teach—that is, they are accountable to the subject-matter they teach for upholding particular curricular standards. Teachers may also feel accountable to students for their learning; to parents for the well-being of their children; to their colleagues for the performance of the school.

Teachers may be asked by colleges and universities to be accountable for preparing students for post-secondary learning; by employers for preparing a skilled work force; and by judicial authorities for preparing law-abiding citizens. In the current context (of pandemic), educators have been asked to take on accountability for the physical and mental health of students as well. In short, schools have many constituencies they serve and for many diverse reasons, but most of these groups have very little agency to inform educator practices. Instead, government has largely taken on that authority.

Historically schools were funded and governed by locally elected school boards. In many ways this made accountability much simpler as educator accountability was quite local and close to stakeholders. As Canada grew, so too did the number of school boards and the complexity of the system. When the Constitution Act was enacted in 1867, education came to rest at the provincial, rather than local (or Federal), level. Since that time, local schools boards in BC have been increasingly regulated and consolidated by the Province (going from around 650 school districts in 1945 to 57 today) and now have only limited autonomy under the provincial government (focusing primarily on budget management and local application of provincial policies).

Over this period, we’ve also seen teacher training moving to universities and the beginning of professionalization, which brought with it its own accountability concerns. In some cases, tensions arose between school boards and teachers, ultimately leading to the formal unionization of teachers (and even greater centralization of provincial control). Today’s conversations frequently emphasize accountability to these centralized sources—government and teacher certification systems, and teachers’ professional unions.

The end result of the centralization and professionalization of education has been a distancing of public education from the community it serves. Indeed, when you look at the public opinion data on schools, you find that the public is generally quite supportive of their local schools and the schools their children attend, but that support diminishes the further away from the community you get (i.e., less favourable ratings of other school districts, schools at the state/provincial level, or schools nationally).

This separation of schools and communities is a problem. The provincial government has worked to address the problem in part through the establishment of Parent Advisory Committees and regular parent satisfaction surveys. Here too, however, power sharing between the Province and parents remains largely symbolic, and has in many ways been used to further constrain educator authority. Across all aspects of governance, in BC the Provincial government has centralized almost all authority regarding the public education system.

This centralization has left very little ability for stakeholder groups (teachers, parents, students, or the broader public) to hold the government to account for the way it manages the system. Teachers have some ability to hold government to account through the collective bargaining process—but as we saw in the early 2000s that process can be corrupted (when the Liberals illegally stripped teachers of their collective rights), and costly to enforce (as teachers were forced into a decade long series of court battles). The ability of British Columbians (as the “public” in public education) to inform the government about the outcomes they want from their education system is even more limited.

Returning to our original question, then, accountable to who and for what, in education Government is weakly accountable to teachers, and even less accountable to the public. Accountable “for what” is largely left undefined. Many governments, BC included, have fallen back on very narrow curricular goals (literacy and numeracy) supplemented by occasional hot button issues (such as graduation rates), generally measured by simplistic large-scale tests and surveys.

In an effort to better define the “for what”, and strengthen the role of the public in the accountability conversation, in 2003 the BCTF decided to ask British Columbians directly about what they wanted from their public school system. A panel of five British Columbians launched a lengthy public consultation process that resulted in the Charter for Public Education. While the Charter process was initiated by teachers through their provincial union the BCTF, it was independently organized and governed.

For five months the panel traveled the province to gather statements from BC residents (students, parents, educators, business people, politicians, and anyone expressing an interest in education in BC). In 42 communities across BC, in large and small cities, rural and urban settings, and throughout the province by e-mail, the panel solicited testimony from British Columbians. The process was focused on aspirational outcomes for BC students and so focused around four over-arching questions:

“What is an educated person?”

“Which of the characteristics [of an educated person] are developed through the public schools?”

“What is an educated community?”

“What are the principles of public education?”

A total of 608 British Columbians responded and the data analyzed included not just presentations and submissions, but the conversations around them. The material was synthesized and analyzed by the panelists for core themes and issues, and this initial analysis and conclusions were further reviewed and commented on by a parent, trustee, teacher and university faculty member selected from hearing participants. Their feedback then informed the final document: The Charter for Public Education.

The Charter was organized into four sections, an overarching preamble, Rights, Promises and Expectations. While the content of these sections are not the focus of this article, the Charter lays out what the public in BC expects of its education system and the responsibilities of stakeholders in ensuring the promise of education is realized. It helps identify the outcomes Government should be held accountable for, and it gives educators an aspirational vision to work toward.

The Charter for Public Education currently rests with the Institute for Public Education/BC. We see the Charter as a charge to Government, Educators, and the public, and a lens through which we can better understand how our schools are doing, and how our government is fulfilling its Constitutional mandate to educate BC’s citizens.

In this light, we also see the Charter as a living document that can be examined and revised as our society grows and evolves. In looking at the Charter today, we have questions about the place of diverse learners and Indigenous students in the document; the place of equity, diversity, and inclusion in BC; and are asking what it means to highlight values espoused by Egerton Ryerson on education (“Education is as necessary as the light. It should be as common as water, and as free as air”)—a strong advocate of public education who also helped create the residential school system and opposed the education of women beyond elementary school.

For accountability to be realized, it must be based in constant reflection, a common understanding of who is engaged in the work, what they are trying to do, and the capacity they have to do that work well. It must be based in the current social context, but looking toward an aspirational future state. We believe the Charter offers us a strong foundation for this work, but only to the extent that it can engage the broader public in holding government to account for the system it controls. We invite you to join us in envisioning what a system based in the Charter should look like now, where we should be moving our schools in the future, and how we can get there together.

If you’re interested in contributing to our work, please contact us!

Dan Laitsch is the Chairperson of the Institute for Public Education’s Board of Directors. He is a founding director for the Centre for Study of Educational Leadership, Associate Professor at SFU and Director of the SFU Surrey Campus Liaison, Faculty of Education.