A commentary by a public high school teacher who is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.
Parents expect schools to keep their children safe. Any school board that fails to meet this basic requirement should be dissolved, or at least removed with new elections held expeditiously.
Too bad trustees at the Greater Victoria School District didn’t pay closer heed to this principle. Safety concerns among students and their parents are so pronounced that Education Minister Lisa Beare recently appointed a special adviser to help the district develop an appropriate safety plan. If it fails to submit a satisfactory plan by Jan. 6, Beare (who rejected the district’s original plan) may replace the school board with an appointed trustee. She certainly has good reason to do so.
Last year, trustees made the bizarre decision to essentially bar police officers from its schools. The ostensible reason was that some students and staff — particularly those who are Black, Indigenous or persons of colour — did not feel safe with police officers in schools.
However, this decision defied common sense. Removing police officers from schools makes it easier for gangs and other unsavory groups to have free reign.
Considering that students from disadvantaged homes are commonly targeted by gangs, it’s unconscionable that trustees won’t allow police in schools.
The ban on police officers was so extreme that the the district even removed an RCMP Indigenous unit officer who had spent 10 years building positive relationships with students and staff. No one can seriously argue that removing this officer from schools improved student safety.
Unsurprisingly, parents and other concerned groups raised serious concerns about the GVSD’s anti-police policy. For example, in a recent letter to the minister, the chiefs of the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations expressed “grave concerns regarding governance missteps and lack of consultation surrounding the discontinuation of the SPLO program.”
Sadly, trustees appear more interested in adhering to their narrow anti-police ideology than providing students with a safe learning environment. The fact that an NDP education minister is threatening to replace the board over this issue tells us everything we need to know about the extreme views of these trustees.
Some parents have already removed their children from district schools. No doubt other parents will follow suit. If students aren’t safe in government schools, parents will explore other options.
One of those options is an independent school. B.C. has the highest percentage in Canada – 13.2 per cent – of students enrolled in independent schools.
Clearly, there’s already a significant appetite in B.C. for educational alternatives. However, not all parents can afford to pay for an independent school.
While the B.C. government provides partial (35 per cent or 50 per cent of the per-student operational spending in the district) funding to independent schools, it does not cover the full cost.
Parents must make up the difference with tuition fees. The Eby government should also follow the example of Alberta and allow for the creation of charter schools, which are also accountable to parents.
Interestingly, there have not been any media reports about independent schools kicking police officers out of their schools.
That’s because the administrators who run independent schools know they cannot impose experimental ideologies without risking parents taking their children elsewhere. So independent schools have no choice but to stay attuned to the communities they serve.
Indeed, the controversy yet again shows that it’s relatively easy for government school trustees to ignore the wishes of parents and community members.
Government school boards tend to be monolithic and slow to change — even when the need for change is overwhelming.
The situation also again raises the question: Why do government school boards even exist? If trustees don’t listen to the wishes of their constituents, there’s little benefit or need for that extra level of bureaucracy.
There’s no question that trustees are failing on student safety. If government school boards won’t keep students safe, it’s time to let parents enroll their children in schools that can.
