This week the Esquimalt Nation’s director of education Kalie Dyer said the Greater Victoria school board has shown “no relational responsibility or accountability,” after the board submitted three Greater Victoria (61) school district safety plans to the education ministry on Monday (Jan. 6) without communicating its plan to do so with the Esquimalt Nation.
Dyer addressed her letter to B.C.’s minister of education Lisa Beare on Thursday (Jan. 9), outlining a series of concerns with how the Greater Victoria Board of Education has approached the process of creating the new safety plan for district 61. Beare had appointed special advisor Kevin Godden to help the school board create this ministry-ordered safety plan on Dec. 6.
Dyer’s letter describes how Godden and superintendent Deb Whitten hosted an information gathering meeting on Dec. 16 with representatives of the Esquimalt Nation, Songhees Nation, Metis Nation of Greater Victoria and Urban Peoples’ House Indigenous Advisory (UPHIA).
Dyer said this meeting also included police, representatives of the school board, district staff and Esquimalt Nation councillor Sherry Thomas.
“During the last round-table Councillor Sherry Thomas was very emotional and, said you know, ‘we’re completely being forgotten, please don’t forget us anymore,’” Dyer described, also saying the school board has a legal and ethical duty to involve the Esquimalt Nation at this stage.
No representatives from the Esquimalt Nation were able to attend a separate working group meeting later that month (Dec. 31), but Dyer said they received a safety plan draft that aligned with the feedback given by the Esquimalt Nation on Jan. 2.
At this point, Dyer said she knew the drafted plan was subject to changes depending on how the school board’s review would go. She expected the board to communicate directly with the Esquimalt Nation about how they would proceed.
“We had anticipated and expected that if any great changes had occurred, that would come back to the nation for review, conversation—to be transparent as was promised and as was expected,” Dyer said.
Instead of hearing back from the board on Monday (Jan. 6), she instead learned the board had published three safety plans. She said the Esquimalt Nation was not informed these two other plans were even in production.
“In fact, it was quite an emotional day on Monday to have received phone calls from the public to notify us that these alternative safety plans were published on the website, and to not have any indication that A, they existed, or B, what the impact of those changes would be on our students and our families.”
She also described several more examples of ways she says the school board has tarnished its relationship with the Esquimalt Nation, during her conversation with Adam Stirling on Thursday, Jan. 9.
Alongside the three safety plans published on the district 61 website on Monday (Jan. 6), the school board had also published a document detailing some of the timeline of events since Beare had appointed Godden as special advisor.
In that memorandum document (dated Jan. 5), the board recommends the minister of education sequentially consider accepting each of the other safety plans, before considering the Jan. 2 plan.
In this same document, the school board suggested the education minister does not have jurisdiction to say a school board must adopt a safety plan, or make rules about what that safety plan includes.
As for what the document reveals about the timeline, it suggests the school board’s review of the Jan. 2 safety plan found some problematic elements. For example, the document states the Jan. 2 plan was less detailed than a different safety plan which the ministry of education had rejected in the fall. It also suggests the Jan. 2 plan failed to meet some requirements of the ministry’s orders, along with other concerns.
As a result of the review of the Jan. 2 plan, the school board decided to assign the special advisor and superintendent to make another draft of the safety plan by Jan. 3.
However, on Jan. 3, the special advisor told the school board he had informed the education minister he could no longer fulfill the task of special advisor with the intended integrity, the school board’s document states. This was not a resignation, but Godden was no longer willing to advise the school board on this.
After this information became public, a former school district 61 superintendent decided to comment on the school board’s actions on CFAX 1070.
Piet Langstraat held the superintendent role for three years leading up to a 2018 retirement.
“After my retirement I was a special advisor to the minister on a number of portfolios,” Langstraat said. “Kevin Godden, I know well. He is a decent, ethical man. And a very smart man. So for him to take the ethical stance that he can no longer work with the board, speaks volumes to me.”
Langstraat said the school board put unrealistic expectations on the special advisor in expecting such speedy revisions, but suggested this sort of deadline crunch would not have happened if the school board was working in partnership with everyone involved from the beginning.
As a special advisor, you don’t have the ability to tell a school board what to do, Langstraat added. He was on CFAX 1070 with Adam Stirling on Wednesday (Jan. 8).
Les Leyne from the Victoria Times Colonist said the issue at hand is whether police have the authority or ability to go into schools routinely to build relationships with children and youth, which the school board is adamantly against. They are dug in on this issue, he said.
“If you just try to work yourself into a position just as a thought experiment where you are in this real conflict with the senior government, and you’ve been working for months to try to find your way around it, and then you come to the deadline and you submit three safety plans, 19,000 words full of basically baffle-gab with three conflicting contradictory options, and then you say along the way: ‘we don’t agree with your position, we don’t think the minister has the authority to do this, and we’ll probably go to court and sue you over this.’ Just trying to figure out where that makes any sense at all in this world is just utterly baffling.”
Leyne was on CFAX 1070 with Al Ferraby on Thursday morning (Jan. 9).
Yesterday evening (Jan. 9) CFAX 1070 received a statement in support of the school board from the president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association.
Carolyn Howe’s statement says it was shocking to hear the minister of education threaten to fire the school board if they don’t make a safety plan which meets ministry standards, and advocates that the Greater Victoria Board of Education should be able to continue its work.
Howe was on CFAX 1070 with Al Ferraby in December.
The body that represents Parent Advisor Councils (PACs) in school district 61 also shared a statement yesterday evening (Jan. 9). The Victoria Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (VCPAC) statement suggests the school board has been responsive to parent concerns and has a strong working relationship with VCPAC.
“For clarity, VCPAC does not want the current and democratically elected board to be relieved of their duties,” the statement said.
VCPAC told CFAX 1070 it will not be responding to media inquiries related to its statement because it is a volunteer organization made up of parent representatives.
CFAX 1070 has extended open invitations to members of the school board to come on air or share further comments on this issue.
So what now? According to CTV reporter Yvonne Raymond, we have no real timeline for what could happen next, but many people want to weigh in on the issue in our community. Raymond was on CFAX 1070 with Ryan Price to discuss her coverage today (Jan. 10).