Our schools need local reps again to oversee education

Finally, after all these years there’s money flowing for public education in B.C. following the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that has forced a full-scale reset of class sizes and specialist teacher ratios.

The first interim settlement alone provides school districts with an additional $50 million for the second half of the school year. Even with what is only a fraction of the total amount of money that must be restored for public schools, hundreds of positions must once again be filled.

How those positions are allocated and who is hired will significantly reshape our schools and, potentially, dramatically improve students’ opportunities for success.

Local committees made up of teachers and school district officials are deciding issues such as whether positions are filled by moving part-time teachers to full-time jobs, whether parttime teacher-librarians become full-time librarians, whether new teachers will work alone or be part of teaching teams, how specialty teachers, school psychologists and counsellors — rare as hen’s teeth — will be recruited and deployed.

In Vancouver, the allocation of $4.4 million is the equivalent of 95 positions. Determining how that all will work and explaining it to students and teachers will not be by an elected school board, but by an individual, appointed trustee.

The nine-person board was fired in October by Education Minister Mike Bernier hours before they passed a budget. The reason? They had failed to bring in a balanced budget by the June 30 deadline.

Dianne Turner, an education ministry employee, is now the public’s window into the changes along with a non-voting student trustee. But the ‘board’ no longer meets bi-weekly. Now, meetings are monthly with questions from citizens limited to 30 minutes at the end and restricted to ones that were submitted in writing.

The whole situation is an unprecedented result of the hyper-politicization of public education, dating to the 1980s when the Social Credit government stripped school boards of their power to levy taxes.

Since then, the role of elected trustees has been limited to advocating for more resources before, eventually, doing the province’s bidding. And what that’s mostly meant is that they’ve been cut- ting and stretching limited funding, knowing full well that they’re failing to meet the needs of many students, let alone the demands of many students and parents for enhanced services.

Because of that, trustees are little more than the meat in the sandwich, caught between the government on one side and parents, students and the B.C. Teachers Federation on the other.

That reduced role is likely why there has been so little public outcry over the firing of democratically elected officials.

Even the B.C. School Trustees Association wasn’t upset. It initially supported the firings. Only after being blasted by its members did the association urge the government to ensure that byelections would be held within six months of any board being fired and within a year of any official trustee being appointed.

John Horgan has vowed to rehire the fired trustees if the New Democrats win the May 9 provincial election.

But the Liberal government hasn’t indicated whether it will hold a byelection when Turner’s contract expires in October 2017 or wait another year until the next scheduled municipal election.

Democracy is supposed to matter. It’s supposed to provide citizens with a voice in how they are governed and how their money is spent. In the case of school boards, it gives them a say in how and what their children are being taught as they’re being prepared for the future.

Of course, there may be good reasons for not having elected school boards. Finland, for example, has one of the most highly regarded school systems in the world without school boards. Its national government sets overall goals and funding, and municipal governments decide how to use the money to achieve the goals.

And, arguably, Vancouver and the Lower Mainland are overgoverned with its 21 separate councils, school boards, Vancouver park board, hospital authorities and a Metro board.

But changing the way education is administered shouldn’t be done piecemeal with the minister picking off one school board at a time.

If the Liberals or anyone else wants to eliminate elected school boards, then make the argument and give the public a chance to have their say. Meantime, it’s time for Vancouver to get back to having elected trustees either through a byelection or the rehiring of the fired ones.

There’s so much happening in our schools right now that we need the people we chose looking out for the future of the province’s children.