Vancouver

Non-Partisan Association – NPA elected officials serve Vancouver’s neighbourhoods on City Council, School Board and Park Board

Vancouver NPA Announces First 2008 Candidates for Nomination

The Vancouver NPA is proud to announce its first set of candidates for nomination for City Council, School Board and Park Board. A total of 18 candidates have put their names forward for 14 open positions for Mayor, City Councillor, School Board Trustee and Park Board Commissioner.

The NPA membership will be asked to choose a Mayoral candidate, five City Council candidates, four School Board candidates, and four Park Board candidates. There will be a second nomination contest in September for the remaining openings on the NPA team.

“I’m extremely impressed with the calibre of candidates that have come forward as nominees,” comments NPA President Matthew Taylor.

Ken Denike, Carol Gibson, and Clarence Hansen seek reelection. Sophia Woo is the only ‘new’ name on the list.

School trustee loses battle with cancer

Ex-government appointee charged with fraud

Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008

A former prominent leader in the B.C. education community has been charged with one criminal count of fraud in connection with her work as a certified management consultant.

Reggi Balabanov, who was president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils from 2000 until 2003 and was later appointed by the Liberal government to the regulatory body responsible for policing teacher conduct, was charged last summer but the charge was never made public.

Where the Blog has No Name: High-School Exit Tests Do Not Improve Academic Achievement, Study Finds

Here’s the bottom-line from these studies: the tests “produce adverse outcomes for educational attainment for a substantial minority of students while providing no estimable labor market or achievement benefits for others.”

SD52 Home: Board of Education

Two elementary schools will be closed this year. A third school is slated for closure and relocation next year. The district is also considering turning the two high schools into one administrative unit with two campuses.

Prince Rupert School District has experienced a 16% drop in enrollment over the past few years.

Read the review document here.

Save Garibaldi Annex!: Victory!

After dragging the process out for over a year the Vancouver School Board has deferred, yet again, the closing of the Garibaldi Annex. The school, with an enrollment of 41 students, has been given a reprieve of two years to boast the number of students from 41 to 77.

In isolation the proposal is effective and inspiring for all people who support keeping all schools currently on the books. In the wider context of next fall’s school board election and the current proposal to close Queen Elizabeth Annex on the well-off west side the school board’s decision seems to imply that no schools will be shut down.

No one envies trustees having to make hard decisions in the face of dozens of young children, their parents, and musical acts. In the long run keeping as many small schools as possible open is a good idea. Every child needs to have the privilege of going to school in a place where they are known by name and as a person. In the larger elementary schools of 500-600 and more the annex type experience is only a faint dream. I think that one wold be more excited if the decision Monday night was part of a wider plan to downsize all of the existing elementary schools so that no school was larger than 250 students.

Congratulations to the Garibaldi community and, by extension, to the Queen Elizabeth Annex parents who can now point out that there are no supportable grounds for closing any school in the district.

Let’s hope that the district can find a way to rebuild schools that are needed.

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See Janet Steffenhagen’s blog on the same subject with some similar conclusions.

Nanaimo Edutopia: The Saddest Day in the History of K-12 education in Nanaimo

Closing schools is a difficult decision to make. In Nanaimo the Board of Education was able to make a hard decision that will contribute to better over all school facilities.

Senior management recommended deferring the decision to rebuilding university area schools at last night’s (Wed. March 5, 2008) meeting. In a carefully prepared report senior management answered many of the complaints raised by QEA activists regarding the original plan. The report also addresses the serious concerns that parents living in the university area have raised in a number of forums (see, UHE PAC, Hampton Journal, Rebuild Our Schools)

New VSB reports:

• Report to March 5th VSB meeting. Download file
• Consultant’s analysis of feedback to EFR-Phase 1 Report. Download file

The following information is from the VSB website:

The report Summary of Consultation Feedback and Phase-1 Recommendations of March 5, 2008, responds to key discussion points and provides clarification and further information.  In this same report district management presents a set of recommendations regarding the Phase-1 proposals.

In consideration of the degree of public interest in the proposals, the remaining stages of the Phase-1 process have been revised to provide more time for consideration of key points and possibilities arising from the consultation process. Within that revised timeline, delegates will be able to present to a Trustee Committee of the whole meeting on March 11^th with possible Board decision on the District management recommendations being made on April 2^nd, 2008. 

Delegates wishing to make a formal presentation to Trustees must pre-register by contacting the Office of The Secretary Treasurer at 604-713-5286. Delegation registration deadline is 10:00 am March 7, 2008.

Delegates wishing to make a formal presentation to Trustees must pre-register by contacting the Office of The Secretary Treasurer at 604-713-5286. Delegation registration deadline is 10:00 am March 7, 2008.

West-side parents not allowed to give away playground grant

VANCOUVER – A plan by west-side parents to donate a government grant for playground equipment to a needy east-side school has been rejected by the Education Ministry and the organization that distributed the cash.

The B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC), which awarded $1 million in provincial grants by holding an unusual lottery, has told Queen Mary parents to spend their $10,000 winnings on their own school playground or return the money so it can be reallocated to a runner-up.

URGENT!
HAMBER MATH FORUM POSTPONED

TO: All elementary and secondary PAC chairs/school DPAC reps

FROM: Vancouver DPAC executive

DATE: Friday, February 29, 2008

The following late breaking news from Vancouver DPAC

SUBJECT: Hamber Math forum, scheduled for next Thursday, March 6, has been cancelled!

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD TO YOUR PARENT AND TEACHER COMMUNITY. DUE TO THE CANCELLATION BY A PRESENTER AND THE MODERATER, THE HAMBER MATH FORUM, SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 6TH HAS BEEN INDEFINITELY POSTPONED.

Due to reasons not completely clear to Vancouver DPAC, two key participants pulled out of the math forum at the last minute forcing the need to reschedule the event later in the year. The forum was initiated by parents at Hamber in cooperation with the District Parents Advisory Council. In response to parent interest and direction, Vancouver DPAC had been planning such a forum for several years. As a result of a fortuitous coincidence (math literacy and improvement is a school growth objective at Eric Hamber) and local parent interest, a forum had been planed for March 6th. The forum would have had a panel presentation involving a UBC faculty member who specializes in the area and the head of the provincial math PSA. The Hamber principal would have been the moderator. However, at the last moment the moderator and the PSA head pulled out. The reasons are not particularly clear.

Math curriculum continues to be a serious area of concern for many parents in Vancouver. Anecdotal reports suggest serious dissatisfaction with the structure of high school math and a rising tide of parents seeking private out of school tutors for their children.

The BCSPE is currently running a survey on the subject. See earlier post for additional detils