In open letter to the Premier, APPLE BC says education promise is 'totally unrealistic'
Noel Herron
Nov 10th, 2010
Vancouver Observer

Dear Premier Campbell:

Before you depart as Premier of British Columbia we, the members of APPLE BC, a newly-formed alliance of parents and partners, would like to send an open letter to you stating our position on the ongoing underfunding of K-12 public education in this province.

This letter is also directed at your successor, so that the issues raised are appropriately dealt with.

We view with the strongest reservations the commitment you made during a province-wide television address, on Wednesday October 27, 2010, to parents that all Grade 4 students in British Columbia would be reading and writing at a Grade 4 level within the next 5 years.

Given the fact your government has been in power for the past decade and that our public schools have been underfunded over that time, and given the fact that you did not provide any information about funding levels for your ambitious goal for our students, we would like to itemize for you, and your successor, the full implications of the solemn commitment you made, as well as our detailed reservations on your promise.

It should be noted that in a poll commissioned by the BC Society for Public Education and conducted by Angus Reid that almost 80% of members of the general public wanted more money for public schools.

We have selected one board - namely, the Vancouver Board of Education, for a review and a call for reinstatement of the programs and services needed in our city schools, at both the district and board level, in order to fully implement your goal. You noted that this would be an "expensive” undertaking but provided no outline of costs involved or of the financial commitment your government was prepared to make to achieve this goal.

We have undertaken in this open letter to outline the scope of the task that lies ahead for your successor. In the 16 itemized points that follow, we show the implications for our urban school district and the obstacles that have to be overcome to even begin to achieve this end.

1. Elimination of the VSB’S funding shortfalls over the next two years…

2. Restoration of VSB’s Inner City Early Childhood (junior kindergarten) programs

The elimination of early childhood programs for 4-year-old students in three Vancouver inner city schools (Strathcona, Seymour and Queen Alexandra) must be rectified. These long-standing, twenty-year programs, absurdly deemed ‘non–core’ by the ministry officials, were part of a genuine strong start for some of the poorest children in this city. The only junior kindergartens left in Vancouver are now found in private schools. It is ironic that these classes are eliminated at a time when early childhood education is supposedly a focus for your government.

3. Restoration of primary (Grades 1-3) ESL reception classes….

4. Restoration of Learning Assistance Centers (LACs)….

5. Restoration of professional development activities for primary teachers…

6. Restoration of teachable class size compositions for Grades 1-3

Currently there are 90 kindergarten to Grade 7 classrooms in Vancouver that exceed the agreed to maximum of three special needs students per class. This violation of the 2005 Round Table agreement (in which you personally participated as Premier) makes effective teaching difficult for homeroom teachers to address the needs of children with learning difficulties, ESL students, and designated special needs students in a regular classroom setting. (Small wonder teachers withdrew from Round Table participation in 2009). These are the students that frequently have difficulties learning to read and write. And the violation of the provincial agreement impedes the ability of teachers - no matter how skilled or experienced - to meet these needs….

7. Restoration of district-wide consultant support for elementary schools….

8. Parental and community involvement…

9. Increase in Learning Resources for primary students….

10. Restoration of support to special needs students…

11. Support for children in poverty

For the seventh year in a row, British Columbia has led Canada in child poverty. This is a shameful record, Mr. Premier, and one which you had promised to address. In Vancouver we have 16 elementary inner-city schools (directly or indirectly affiliated with a governmental program) which struggle on a daily basis to level the instructional playing field. Universal hot lunch programs, which previously were provided by the board to inner city children, now charge a $65-dollar monthly fee for families of disadvantaged students. Schools previously deemed inner city have been dropped from the list (i.e. Lord Roberts School). Poverty, according to a recent Vancouver board study, is spreading from the downtown core to the South-East sector of the city.

12. Support for aboriginal students

Vancouver has one of the largest populations of aboriginal students in BC. Five years ago the VSB signed, along with local First Nations peoples and Victoria, a formal First Nations Enhancement Agreement, to improve instructional programs and services for these students. This agreement has been undermined by ongoing cutbacks to the point where many aboriginal parents today believe that the agreement is not worth the paper it is written on.

13. Support for before- and after-school care

Before- and after-school community organizations will increasingly be unable to provide this service to families and children due to the increases in rental fees the VSB is now compelled to levy on community groups. This exacerbates the ongoing crisis in childcare in the city. Two facilities closed this year: Champlain Heights daycare closed in September while Charleston Park daycare closed in October. The threatened closure of Queen Alexandra and Carleton schools will eliminate 50 much-needed on-site childcare spaces while Macdonald school, also threatened, will lose 22 preschool and 30 childcare spaces. Add to this the new and unfair pressures put on Community Centres across the city to provide childcare services for 10 extra days for children and families due to the shortening of the school year.

14. Expansion of Strong Start in Vancouver

Premier Campbell, your plan to address the 30 percent of children that lack school readiness (in Strathcona this is 60 per cent!) by adding 100 Strong Start centers across the province does not even begin to address urban preschool needs. Incidentally, we have known about the lack of school readiness for over a decade and your government has done nothing about it. Strong Start is a part-time, drop-in program that lacks program continuity. It does not meet the needs of single parents, or working parents who do not have grandparents to rely on to bring children to these centres. It is at best a short-term, stop-gap solution that falls abysmally short of established programs in other jurisdictions - Sure Start in the UK and Head Start in the United States are examples.

15. Moratorium on school closures in Vancouver:….

16. Support for early childhood care and learning

Currently British Columbia’s early childhood care and learning programs can only be described as a complete mishmash of cobbled together services.These range from book and booster-seat handouts to preschool parents, to curriculum guidelines for teachers, along with the inadequate Strong Start program, as outlined above. BC needs a clearly-articulated, long-range early childhood care and learning plan. It emphatically does not need short-term, political quick fixes. As documented in the literature, such programs, if not properly implemented, will have very negative economic and educational implications for the future of this province. These implications are encapsulated in the axiom: “pay now, or pay later"…

For APPLE BC,
Scott Clark, Crystal Tabobandung, Karen Whyte, Noel Herron, Patricia Badir, Ron Suzuki, Peter Black, Grace Tait, Janet Vesterback, Tom Baker, David Beattie, and Kathleen Young.

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