‘WHAT ELSE COULD THERE BE TO CUT?’
It has been a busy week for Dianne Turner, the Vancouver school board’s sole trustee, who was appointed to the role by B.C. Education Minister Mike Bernier after he fired the elected board on Oct. 17 for not passing a balanced budget. Turner, who has two adult daughters and whose husband is a retired teacher, sat down with education reporter Tracy Sherlock for a wide-ranging interview that touched on her plans, the return date of the administrators on sick leave, and the inevitability of school closures in Vancouver.
Q What have you heard from the staff on medical leave? Will they be returning and, if so, when?
A Some are coming back, but not as quickly as I originally thought. One is not coming back and there will be an announcement this morning about that. The board meeting we had planned for November 7 may not happen until November 21, if the staff are not back yet, because a secretarytreasurer and a superintendent are required to hold a board meeting. Committee meetings will start as soon as we have the staff to get them going.
Q Do you intend to change any board policies? In particular, policies about not selling school lands, not leasing space to private schools, or the required school closure process.
A I don’t anticipate the need to change those policies, for sure not right now. I did say the other day that I don’t see the school closure process happening in the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean never.
Q Do you expect Vancouver will have to face closing schools eventually?
A I think so. What I’ve done is ask that other superintendents tell me what their ratio is of the number of seats available in their districts. I really want to get a handle on this and compare it to other districts. There is another part to this story, which is the unique nature of the VSB. It’s got a lot of really old buildings — lovely old buildings — but they are incredibly expensive to upkeep and to update. There are also other features like the aboriginal program at MacDonald elementary. That school doesn’t have a lot of children, but it’s very unique.
Q Have you been through school closures before?
A Yes, when I was new to the position of assistant superintendent in Delta and Steve Cardwell was the superintendent, a small annex and an elementary school were closed. The annex only had about 25 students in it and the elementary school was very close to two other schools and enrolment had drastically declined. Elementary schools are seen as the hub of a community by parents and there were a lot of tears and a lot of upset people. But a year later, the children had settled into their new schools.
Q How do you plan to speed up seismic upgrades? Only 21 schools in Vancouver have been completed since the program began in 2004, but there are 60 schools that still need upgrades in Vancouver. Is this even possible to get done in the next 13 years by 2030?
A I don’t know. I would like to work closely with the ministry to see what kind of fast-tracking of seismic upgrades we can do. I will be meeting with the ministry as often as possible and be a strong advocate for that. I do know that the Ministry of Education has only a certain amount of dollars that they get per year to do this program from the treasury, so I don’t know percentage-wise what we can expect in Vancouver.
Q How much direction has the government given you?
A Not much. The direction has been to, first of all, get this district on a good financial footing. It’s going to be challenging and a lot of work, but that’s definitely a high priority so that you can do everything else that you want to do.
Q Bernier appointed an adviser, Peter Milburn, to review the previous board. Bernier said that report contributed to his decision to fire the board. Have you seen the Milburn report? A No, not yet.
Q Do you have any idea how you will balance next year’s budget without closing schools? There is a $15-million shortfall projected.
A No, I do not. It is going to be incredibly tough because all of the cuts all of these years have led to a particular place of what else could there be to cut?
Q Would any changes to board policies be done in public meetings?
A Yes. I think a lot of those discussions take place at committee tables, so the stakeholder input is at the committee table. I don’t want people to think there won’t be input. When it comes public and is announced at a public meeting, there will have been significant work done by staff and stakeholders behind the scenes.
Q Tell me about the student trustee and how her role will continue.
A The student voice for me is very important. If I can have her sitting at the table representing the student voice and having some impact and influence on decision making, that would be great. She is the representative of all of the students in Vancouver. My hope is to not only meet with her, but also to meet with the other student council presidents in Vancouver over time. I want to ask them some very important questions around the new curriculum, around their environment in schools and around how they learn best.
Q What are your intentions for meeting with staff and parents?
A I think it’s going to take a while to build trust. I think people think I am an arm of the government because I have been appointed by government. I think it’s fair to say that I’m also able to make my own mind up about a lot of things. Often I will say, if we haven’t got students at the centre of this decision, then we’ve got it wrong.