Advocacy: the ripple effect

Boards and BCSTA are advocating actively – and urgently – to keep public education funding at needed levels. The result is a gathering stream of successes ...

Bill Maslechko has never seen anything like it.

The Kootenay Lake Chair is inspired by his community’s groundswell of support for public education funding. It’s support that stretches across all partner lines, melting boundaries, erasing differences.

“I’ve never experienced the level to which partners have come together over this funding crisis,” says Maslechko, a former superintendent, principal, teacher and counsellor. “I’m a retiree, and I spend a lot of time golfing and curling. Everybody I meet – not just people with children in school – is expressing concern about the cuts.”

Along with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, parent advisory councils and teachers, the Kootenay Lake Board made a submission to government seeking desperately needed funding. Their united advocacy paid off: they received permission to use $500,000 of capital funding.

Kootenay Lake isn’t stopping there, though. Relates Maslechko, “We’ve asked for reinstatement of the Annual Facilities Grant, and we’ve written a letter asking for a meeting with the minister.”

What’s happening in Kootenay Lake isn’t an isolated story. It’s playing out around British Columbia, as boards of education unite with their communities to advocate passionately for our public schools – for our students.

It’s a story that’s also very much alive and ongoing at the provincial level. Featured prominently in the press, President Connie Denesiuk and BCSTA are keeping funding advocacy at the forefront of public and partner awareness. Recently Connie presented to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services on the urgency of increasing the long term investment in public education.

“Increasing demands on the system, an expanded mandate, rising costs and an aging infrastructure all threaten to erode BC’s excellent system without an increased, sustainable investment,” says Connie, who delivered BCSTA’s submission to the Committee.

BCSTA’s President thanks trustees for their continuing strong local advocacy. To illustrate the long-term instability resulting from the sudden, mid-year cuts, Connie asks all boards to keep on sharing direct examples of these significant impacts. She cites, for example, Victoria trustees, who have taken their local MLAs on a tour of schools to graphically demonstrate the effects.

Says Victoria Chair Tom Ferris, “Our school district is faced with a large structural deficit for the 2010-11 budget year, and our board will not have the resources to deal with it without making the kinds of cuts which will undoubtedly impact classrooms and students. For that reason, we have responded to each of the recent announcements from government which impact us financially. In addition, we made a submission to the Select Standing Finance Committee outlining our concerns.

“Currently we are attempting to access funds to bridge the shortfall in AFG funding.  It is my personal impression that the provincial government is caught in a financial squeeze and may have lost sight of their educational priorities in the process.”

Tom continues to meet with local MLAs to show them the demands facing Victoria – and the funding its schools so urgently need to meet those demands.

Advocacy tips from a Surrey trustee

Surrey Board Chair Laurae McNally is among the longest-serving trustees in the province. First elected to the Surrey Board in 1980, Laurae has served since that time except for one five-year period. She has provided workshops for trustees and community groups about how to be successful in advocacy. Here’s Laurae’s advice:

“When advocating with any level of government, it’s important to not put people in a corner, literally or figuratively. Keep in mind often you are asking someone to change his or her mind, effectively admitting a decision was wrong. So, do some homework and think of options that can lead to a compromise so the government or individual you are lobbying has a way to help you while saving face.

“Also, avoid confrontation, or the ‘stick’ approach. Try to arrange a face-to-face meeting and lay out the facts of your case in a thoughtful and honest way. Avoid hidden agendas and fighting it out in the media.

“Think of what works to persuade you: force and negativity, or cooperative and convincing dialogue?”

Somebody got convinced: repairs at Surrey’s Johnston Heights Secondary, stalled with the announced funding cuts, are now going ahead. The government has committed to plug leaks at Johnston that had been letting heavy rain in for six years. This came as a huge relief to the board, which had already invested in portables and prep work.

In Peace River North, Chair Gordon Anderson and his board maintain that, whatever funding is available, they should have the flexibility to decide how to spend it. “We’re the ones living in the community. We’re at the heart of the community. We should be able to decide where the funds are really needed in our schools.”
Different districts, different circumstances – but the same board and community determination runs through all of them.

“There are very encouraging examples of effective local advocacy,” says Connie. “From boilers to roofing, from moldy classrooms to support-staff layoffs – BCSTA and our boards are raising awareness with government and the public about the many and significant challenges that our districts are facing.”

Remembering Peter Jones

The former North Vancouver trustee was instrumental in establishing Capilano College

He was “the ideal of what a school trustee should be” – and now friends and family of the late Peter Jones (1918-2009) are urging that a West Vancouver seniors’ centre be named after him.

As Mayor of West Vancouver from 1974-78, Jones, an engineer, got the plans going for the present-day West Vancouver Seniors’ Activity Centre. After Jones died last month, those close to him felt that a fitting tribute would be to rename it the C. Peter Jones Memorial Seniors’ Centre.

But getting the seniors’ centre underway was only one of Jones’s accomplishments. “As a North Vancouver school trustee, he conceived of the notion that there should be a community college. Almost individually, he carried the idea of Capilano College through to fruition,” relates Jones’s son-in-law, Dr. George Pedersen.

Just last May, Cap College presented Jones with an honourary degree – a rare occasion when the modest founding partner of Read Jones Christoffersen Engineering allowed himself to be publicly recognized. More often Jones preferred to work quietly for the public good, for example, as a volunteer for 19 years with patients at Lions Gate Hospital’s Palliative Care Unit.

“He was the fairest man I’ve ever met,” says Pedersen, who’s been president of the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and University of Western Ontario, and is now board chair of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. “Peter was the ideal school trustee – a true gentleman. He was what we should all aspire to be.”

Jones’s achievements are all the more remarkable for the disability he suffered as a Canadian navy lieutenant commander in World War II. During a major – and, needless to say, extremely loud – skirmish with a German U-boat, Jones lost much of his hearing. “In those days, and in those circumstances, there was no ear protection,” Pedersen explains.

Pedersen encourages trustees to e-mail West Vancouver Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones and her Council about renaming the seniors’ centre. (If you prefer to write via Canada Post, it’s: Mayor and Council, The District of West Vancouver, 750 17th Street, West Vancouver, BC V7V 3T3.) “It’d be great to see Peter honoured this way," says Pedersen.