March School Board Meetings

The end of March and start of April saw a flurry of School Board Meetings.

Amongst other things, the March Board meeting considered covered play areas, IT in schools, District communications strategy and surplus land consultations. The April "Future of Schools" meeting discussed population and enrolment trends and the "Finance and Facilities" meeting examined options for the potential $1,000,000 in unallocated budget for next school year.

It's a bit of a long post, but below are a few comments on each of these meetings.

March Board Meeting

Covered Play Areas
The first main topic for this meeting was the issue of covered play areas for elementary schools. North Vancouver being a rainy location many kids are forced to play outside in the rain at recess and lunch due to a lack of covered play areas. Parents have asked for covered areas for many years but limited capital budgets have kept the option off the table. But parents have argued it would not be as expensive as thought and offered to help. The trouble is that nobody really knows, but it appears we will soon as the meeting the board has asked district staff to look at the cost of a covered play area at Highlands and report back on the options next fall. Within this discussion was also the suggestion of establishing a policy on covered play areas. Whether the School District will be able to set a policy or build covered areas remains to be seen but at least, come this fall, the board and the public will be able to address the issue with more meaningful sets of costs and options in hand.

21st Century Learning
The North Vancouver Digital Media Academy presented a video they had produced for the School District on "21st Century Learning" in North Vancouver. The video showed a variety of different of these teaching methods in use in different schools around the district. What the film showed me was both good and bad. The great variety of different approaches to teaching different students shows how vibrant education can be while these examples of the knowledge, experience and passion of North Vancouver teachers to implement these techniques gives one confidence in the system. The challenge is that as a parent it is hard to know which teachers are teaching in what ways and how well these ways might suit my children. The old ways may not work the best but I was fairly sure I knew what to expect, now I need to know which of many ways my children's teachers will be using. I'm comfortable relying on their expertise but this additional complexity in classroom teaching will require more communication to help everyone understand what is expected of their child and of the school system.

An IT framework for the school district.
The district introduced their new technology planning framework at the March board meeting. What is refreshing to see is a focus on establishing general principles supporting the use of the technology to enhance education rather than a focus on the equipment, needs and speeds typical in many IT plans.

The framework provides a lot of flexibility to enable schools, PACs and students to invest in manor appropriate to their current needs. This is helpful in that it encourages everyone to look at how the technology will be used first rather than what technology is supported. PACS working to enhance IT in their schools are encourage to have these discussions with their schools and with the district to help the PACs understand how this translates into recommendations for actual investments and implementations policies.

Land Management Community Engagement Meetings
The board has decided to talk to the community, including the municipalities, about the future options for the various parcels of available surplus land currently the property of the School District. The disposition of land by the district is nearly always contentious and the board would like to provide the public with early input into their plans and planning process and will do so with two sessions, one April 25th and another in May.


Toward the Future of Schools Meeting
This meeting went over in good detail the many sources and analysis methods the School District uses to forecast and examine enrolment in North Vancouver schools, on a district and a school catchment basis.

With the combination of declining enrolment and the right for parents to choose to enrol their students at any school in the province this is an important that the District is asked about a lot. Are parents choosing West Vancouver, are the various District efforts (Academies etc) aimed at providing options for students keeping students in North Van or otherwise distorting enrolment by encouraging students to enrol in schools elsewhere in North Vancouver.

The evidence appears to show that the academies do keep students in North Vancouver as enrolment in other districts is stable but the degree of movement within the district continues to rise as parents become more aware of different options. As long as there is an even mix of options throughout the district this should balance itself out but continued monitoring of this trend remains essential as we open or close programs and options around the district.

Finance and Facilities Meeting
At this meeting the District partner groups. (NVPAC, Student Leadership Council, (NOVA) School Administrators, CUPE and NVTA were asked to provide their input into how the School District should allocate approximately $1 million in available additional funds for next years budget. Each group was asked for their input and then a discussion took place to try and arrive at overall recommendations.

My observation is that 2 years ago the district made significant cuts to the budget and with the experience of the past two years of the cuts we are now learning where perhaps we have cut too far and need to reinvest to make the system sustainable.

I think this position can be seen in the very reasonable requests from CUPE for maintenance staff, from administrators for more administration time and teachers for more assistance for special needs students. These are areas cut and reorganized 2 years and we can now see how those cuts have impacted the system and where, if the option is available, we most need to put money back. This position was also seen in the subsequent discussion as people clearly acknowledged the real need for each of the requests and the potential large impact addressing them would provide.

For our part NVPAC recommended:
1. That attention be given to improving communication both to and from the district to help parents and students sort out the increasing complexity of the options and the changes in teaching practice within the school system and to help the district understand where the complexity may be creating resolvable challenges for parents and students. We're not sure this requires more funds, just vigilance.

2. That the school district ensure there is enough planned budget and contingency to ensure the successful start to the new Carson Graham, Ridgeway school and to the Community Learning Program. Like everyone else, we want to see these investments in education get off and running in a positive and exciting fashion and create a lasting positive momentum for these programs and so request that the district make sure there is enough funding to push through the inevitable teething problems for these schools.

3. That the District help to provide PACs with guidance on their IT investments for schools. We see a wide variety of approaches to IT across the district in different schools and classrooms as many classroom IT investments are made by PACs with input from the schools. We would like to see a somewhat more consistent approach to ensure PACs are investing in initiatives that will continue to support students in the long-term. To support this we would like to see a continued investment from the District to support PACs in their efforts with good information on how we can work together to match our efforts with each other.