The New Westminster school district has sent out its new draft appeals by parents and students policy for public consultation and doesn't expect a final decision to be made until at least March.
Policy No. 500.1 has been in the news recently because a group of parents have been concerned with the marks their children are receiving from a Foundations of Math 11 teacher at New Westminster Secondary School.
While the parents are in the midst of going through the appeals process for their specific case, they are also looking at ways of making the policy more accessible to other parents.
The district has listened to that latter concern and at Tuesday evening's regular board meeting, director of instruction Janet Grant presented the district's proposed draft policy changes to Policy 500.1.
She noted that the two key differences in the proposed new draft include a parent no longer being part of the district review committee, but parents having the ability to "bring an advocate of their choice" to a district review meeting and if they don't have an advocate, they can "request a representative from the district parents' advisory council"; and translation and interpretation services to be provided upon request.
Grant pointed out that 57 of 59 school districts in the province do not have a parent on their district review committee. Only New Westminster and the Gulf Islands currently include a parent on this committee, but Grant noted the Gulf Islands has not convened a review committee meeting in recent history.
Grant said the proposed changes have been summarized in a pamphlet that was distributed to those in attendance at Tuesday night's meeting.
In the pamphlet, the district sets out the four-step process parents and students can go through to appeal anything from a disciplinary suspension to a child's exclusion from a school for a health condition.
The district review committee is the second step in the process and this committee's responsibility is to review a decision made during the first step of the appeals process.
In Grant's report, she points out the committee should consist of the superintendent, the director of instruction, a member of the New Westminster Principal and Vice-Principals' Association and either a member from the New Westminster Teachers' Union or a CUPE member.
The current policy in place includes a parent being part of the committee, but according to school board chair James Janzen, the district received direction from the privacy commissioner last year that a parent should not be part of the committee.
Janzen said the draft policy now has to go out for public consultation and he expects that to last at least four weeks and probably closer to six weeks.
"This is still in a draft form," he said. "I think we will give people a little more time to look this over. ... We will send it to the (parent advisory councils) and it will be March at the earliest before we make any final decisions."
The board has already received some feedback, as two parents, Kal Randhawa and Lisa Chao, made a presentation at Tuesday night's meeting.
Among the changes Chao and Randhawa would like to see to the draft policy are: a mechanism to protect a child's identity should the concern be with the teacher and that the first step in the process, talking with the teacher, to be optional at the discretion of the parent or child; other teachers aware of a problem should also be able to have their identity protected at their discretion and be able to approach school administration directly with concerns; all complaints to the principal should be documented immediately on a standardized form; senior administration needs to be legally obligated to demonstrate they have thoroughly investigated a problem and acted on their findings; a mechanism for a group of parents with the same concern to approach both school and district administration and trustees; and in the case of an appeal to the board, it needs to be made clear early in the process which trustees may have the duty to recuse themselves.
"Without these changes," said Chao, "The district will never know of some of the problems faced by children, nor the extent of others previously identified. ... The children need to come first."
"What I've presented is just preliminary," said Grant. "This is just going out for public consultation. ... We are looking at making the process more user-friendly for parents."
To see the district's draft Policy No. 500.1: Appeals by Parents and Students, please click on this link: Draft Policy 500.1.
www.twitter.com/AlfieLau
