Login / RegisterVancouver school defenders raise ante
Like many East Side parents these days, Tracy Johnson is worried about the future of her kids’ school. She’s a single mom of aboriginal descent with four daughters and one son attending Sir William Macdonald elementary at 1950 East Hastings Street. It’s on a shortlist of five schools that could be closed next June by the Vancouver board of education.
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Standing outside Premier Gordon Campbell’s constituency office on November 8, Johnson told reporters that her life has been settled for six months after she moved into a low-income housing unit. She revealed that her children have attended five different schools where they encountered difficulties because of learning disabilities, but they’re finally succeeding at Macdonald.
“I’m going to fight for my children’s rights until we get the funding we need for our kids’ school,” Johnson declared. “This school is a huge part of our lives right now.”
Tracy Johnson is worried about the possible closure of her kids' school. Travis Lupick photo.
She said Macdonald elementary not only helps her kids with meal programs and after-school care, it also assists her by encouraging her to be a good parent. Johnson also emphasized that she didn’t want to see the closure of four other schools on the shortlist: Sir Guy Carleton, Champlain Heights Annex, Queen Alexandra, and McBride Annex.
“All I could think of is how much pain it has caused everyone else because I know it has caused me a lot of pain,” she said.
Johnson is part of a new education-advocacy group called APPLE B.C., which is an acronym for the Alliance of Parents and Partners to Lobby for Education in B.C. She and three other members—parent and urban aboriginal advocate Scott Clark, retired school principal Noel Herron, and community-centre worker Ron Suzuki—stood outside the premier’s constituency office to announce a planned protest on behalf of public education at this location (3615 West 4th Avenue) at noon on Friday (November 12).
“We have two principal concerns,” Clark told reporters. “One is no more school closures. We’ve already had 191 closed since Campbell came into office. And two, we want to see the restoration of funding—of a fair funding formula—for all of our schools in urban and rural British Columbia.”
Clark said that provincial funding shortfalls have had “a profound impact on children with special needs, particularly urban aboriginal children, and, of course, all impoverished children”.
“We know where the B.C. Liberals stand,” he stated, before turning his attention to the Opposition. “The NDP has been absolutely silent on their position in regards to the most challenged children in British Columbia.”
The Straight asked Clark how he would rate NDP Leader Carole James’s record when it came to issues affecting urban aboriginal kids. (James is of aboriginal heritage.)
“Ms. James has, in my mind, been absolutely silent on the devastating impacts throughout all the ministries of the provincial government on urban aboriginal children,” he responded. “It’s time that Ms. James stand up and tell us what their position is as it relates to education services for aboriginal children—and all children in this province. Stop playing games. Our children need hope right now and sadly, the NDP is not standing up, giving children, all our children, hope throughout British Columbia. And that is a shame.”
Scott Clark calls on the B.C. Liberals and the federal government to focus on urban aboriginal affairs.
At the end of the event, Clark claimed that the federal government won’t recognize that it has a fiduciary responsibility to the 80 percent of aboriginal people who do not live on reserves. He added as federal funds are transferred to the province and then on to other levels of government, such as municipalities and school board, there continues to be a lack of official recognition of the rights of urban aboriginal people.
“If we don’t do anything, we are going to have a ticking time bomb on our hands,” Clark warned. “We see many issues surface in Winnipeg, in Edmonton, in Calgary because governments refused to address things in a holistic, comprehensive manner and uphold their fiduciary responsibility to all aboriginal people, regardless of residency.”
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Jerilynn Webster
Dan Guinan
Patti Bacchus
Wanda Cassidy
Peter Cowley
All our students, no matter what parental income, deserve quality education, up-to-date textbooks & supplies. Inclusion of our children with special needs is mandatory, all needs must be addressed and supported in regular classrooms unless absolutely impossible. That requires more staff. Cuts of special needs funding cannot be an option for districts. The needs of Aboriginal students must be considered and implemented. The needs of ESL students must be considered and implemented. The provincial government must start long-range planning so districts can plan and create and not just put fingers in the dikes and pray they hold.
While these considerations, creative thinking and planning are taking place, Trustees and others involved have no time to be worrying about cuts they know will definitely harm our students & further damage public education in our province. Fund what we need now; no more cuts - the province must up the funding to what the districts know we need. No school closures, No more decimation of communities and lives. Time to create and ensure quality public education for all.
Support public Education in BC!
12 November · 11:30 - 14:00
Location Premier's office at 3615 West 4th Avenue --
Different premier, same cuts our kids can’t take!
FREE busses leaving at 11:30am from:
Collingwood Neighbourhood House (5288 Joyce St)
...MacDonald Elementary (1950 East Hastings St)
Queen Alexandra Elementary (1300 East Broadway)
Strathcona Community Centre (601 Keefer St)
Champlain Heights Annex (7835 Champlain Cres.)
*pls note pickup is at the Annex, not elementary
SCHOOL CLOSURES—at present 191 closed, with 25 more threatened since 2001. By the end of the current school year, this number will exceed 200.
TEACHER LAYOFFS AFFECT VULNERABLE STUDENTS —up to 3,000 teachers laid off since 2001; hundreds in speciality areas such as special needs, ESL, learning assistance, Aboriginal education and skill development, with devastating impact to these students.
PARENT FUNDRAISING—dramatic increase in parent fundraising over the past decade with parent advisory committees forced to compensate for cutbacks to programs and services. Parents fundraise for school supplies, resources, materials and playgrounds. Fees levied by schools have sharply increased and community organizations scramble to take up the slack. And BC Liberals claim the “greatest ever” funding for schools!
Go ahead! Pay for 'em yourself! The fact is they all require additional teacher training which not coincidentally means higher paid teachers.
Schools that are chronically short of capacity must be closed.
You want them to stay open? Go ahead! Pay for that yourself!
Do you think there's no end to the spending? You're wrong!
You can speak all you want of ambitious, noble-sounding programs, but while you're all busy putting that rarefied concept in place, kids come out of grade 12 unable to form a sentence,never mind a paragraph.
They are simply NOT BEING TAUGHT!
The lot of you are too busy falling all over yourselves about "special needs, aboriginals, ESL". It's nothing but an excuse to suck up more money and claim "underfunding" even as we throw millions more at you EVERY YEAR!
The starting point is to work through the schools and communities and non aboriginal society to end the racism in this country aimed at the aboriginal people including school aged children. This includes ending the stereotyping and exclusion and patronizing attitude that many aboriginal kids face in our schools from teachers, parents and
students.
Next, the elders and leaders in native communities and the educational leaders in this province need to develop curriculum that is relevant and useful to aboriginal students and for that matter all children. We must be sure that the funding for aboriginal families for food, clothing and shelter is available and accessible. No one can learn on an empty stomach and without good nutrition sound housing and reasonable clothing.
We must retrain teachers to understand that their major tasks are to learn how their students learn, teach all kids the love of learning, teach the tools needed to learn and achieve and make their classes challenging, enjoyable again relevant. . And we must be sure we involve homes and parents and community leaders in the work that needs to be done to make the schools better and more inclusive of aboriginal heritage, and culture.
A good start might be to read the Sullivan Report written in 1990 I believe, that talks about the weakness of high schools in BC.
There is much more that needs to be done but as I said we could start by being accepting of aboriginal people and the culture of these first Canadians. Lastly,it cannot be what non aboriginal people can do for aboriginal people but what non aboriginal can do to assist the first Canadians gain more success in the education system in Vancouver and throughout the country