The minister of education has no plans to kick New Westminster school district trustees off the board of education and have the province take over managing the district until the November election, despite a call from angry parents.
Peter Fassbender said his ministry is working with the district to get its fiscal house in order, and he expects it will have paid off its $5-million deficit by June 2019.
“What’s really important is that we continue to work with the duly elected board to make sure that the issues that they are facing are being addressed in a proper way,” Fassbender told The Record. “We support what the board is doing at the moment to manage their resources, to eliminate the deficit they have and to minimize – and this is the critical element for us – the impact on students and staff and the parents in the school district.”
A reported 100 people turned up at New Westminster Secondary School’s library for the parent advisory council meeting on Jan. 16 to discuss the district’s dire budget situation and how it will impact students. The frustrated parents voted for trustees to resign, for the province to intervene in the district and to look into the possibility of amalgamating with Burnaby.
The parent council sent a letter to Fassbender on Monday, outlining its requests.
“I also have heard the request from the group, and like everything, I need to look at the whole picture, not only one component of it, and we’re going to ensure that stability is the first issue,” he said.
The parent council sent a letter to the district on Monday as well, calling for it to provide all the information parents need to make decisions for the next school year, including the high school’s projected operating budget and details on programs that would be cut. As well, they called for a “preliminary exploration of the feasibility of amalgamation with the Burnaby school district.”
On amalgamation, Fassbender said the province is looking into ways to find efficiencies through shared services, but he stopped short of supporting a full-scale joining of the two districts.
“I’m not going to leap to amalgamation – what I am going to say is we are looking at the whole picture in terms of stability, looking for a 10-year agreement with the BCTF (British Columbia Teachers’ Federation), not because we want to put them in a corner but because we want long-term stability so that we can ensure the continuity for the students, parents, communities and otherwise,” he said.
Asked if it would be logistically feasible to merge the two districts, Fassbender said, “anything is possible if you do it for the right reasons, with the right outcomes and with the concurrence of the community.”
“I come from a community where there was two municipalities that had one school district,” said Fassbender, a former City of Langley mayor. “Many years ago we had a reduction of school districts to what we currently have, because of that being more efficient, being more effective and delivering better service, so it’s been done in the past. I’m not saying we are going to do it in the future, but what we are looking at is stability first.”
New Westminster trustee MaryAnn Mortensen said she understands parents’ frustration over the district’s handling of the budget. Mortensen was a member of the district parent advisory council before she was elected to the board in 2011 and was often critical of the board.
Before she joined the board, Mortensen said she supported looking into amalgamation, but she now feels the move would have to be mandated by the larger population of the city she serves and not just a small portion of parents.
“There are advantages to amalgamating, but there are also disadvantages, and some people think they’d rather risk it than put up with us any longer … I fully understand that,” she said. “I don’t know if Burnaby would like us. Right? Do they want to adopt the rotten apple at the back of the class?”
While she’s not sure she supports amalgamation, Mortensen does favour provincial oversight – if it doesn’t cost the cash-strapped district.
“I would really like to see someone from the ministry, with some expertise and some knowledge about New Westminster … come in and work with our board for the duration of this school year and, if necessary, until the next election – to help us to identify means and ways to change how we are doing things here,” she said. “I’ve seen change, I will say, with this board, but it’s not enough. It’s simply not enough.
“There is a culture of wanting things to stay the same way. I don’t think it’s sustainable,” added Mortensen, who also said the province doesn’t adequately fund public education.
New Westminster Secondary School parent council chair Stephen Bruyneel praised Mortensen for being the first trustee he’s heard say “something that actually made sense.”
“MaryAnn Mortensen agreed with the need for the province to play a role. She agreed with giving parents the information they need as soon as possible by the middle of February. I hope that the rest of the school board will listen to her,” Bruyneel said.
As for amalgamation, Bruyneel admitted he was “torn.”
“I’ve lived in New West for 23 years, and I’m proud to be in New West, but at the same time I’ve lived through how many years of this school district,” he said. “At the end of the day what do you do, you get so frustrated you look at these extreme options.”
This isn’t the first time in parents in New Westminster have asked the province to step into issues with the district. In 2009, parents at Lord Kelvin, F.W. Howay, John Robson and Richard McBride elementary schools requested that the province appoint a special adviser to oversee the school district. In 2012, the district parent advisory council asked the Ministry of Education to audit math marks at New Westminster Secondary School.
None of the requests were met.
