The New Westminster School District still has work to do on clear messaging around its sanctuary schools policy, officials said at a recent committee meeting.
The sanctuary schools policy was enacted in March 2017, and the education policy and planning committee heard a brief update on sanctuary schools in a recent meeting.
The policy follows a basic tenet – every child is entitled to an education, regardless of immigration status – but officials said they are still working on making that message clear to families of potential students.
District leadership staff received training on the policy and office staff at schools received training as part of their orientation at the beginning of the year, Superintendent Karim Hachlaf told the committee.
Trustee Maya Russell noted that there were “specific directives” from the sanctuary schools steering committee, which hasn’t met since June 2018, that still have not been realized.
“I think we actually have some work to do in terms of our implementation … around prominent signage in school offices, admission offices and on the board’s website,” Russell said.
Hachlaf said he wanted to see another steering committee meeting on the policy in order to look at some of the next steps.
“There’s a few components in front of us that consider our phone registration system as a school district and what that might look like to make sure there is a consistent message around registration, including our sanctuary school policy,” Hachlaf said.
A steering committee meeting will be held before the end of the year to work on a plan moving forward with the sanctuary schools policy.
