School District No. 46 (SD46) trustees called a newly introduced Bill by the Ministry of Education “alarming” and “draconian” before deciding to voice their concerns to government and the BC School Trustees Association (BCSTA) this week.
Bill 11 was released by the Ministry of Education at the end of March in an effort to “strengthen K-12 accountability, efficiency and professional development,” according to the government.
The Bill seeks to make several amendments to the School Act focused on four objectives, a press release from the Ministry of Education stated.
The government’s objectives include: building a framework for continuing professional development; facilitating delivery of shared services among school districts; improving the accountability framework for student learning and aligning the provisions on the disclosure of student data with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
While the objectives sound good on the surface, trustees said at the April 14 school board meeting, many of the proposed changes in Bill 11 take away local power and transfer it to the Ministry.
“A few things that I found really alarming for me personally: There’s a comment that the scope of the Minister’s authority will be broadened if Bill 11’s passed and in regards to authorizing administrative directives, that if the Minister believes a board is failing or has failed to meet obligations [it can be replaced],” said trustee Lori Pratt. “I’m nervous about what’s going to happen with this bill.”
Trustee Christine Younghusband agreed.
“It’s giving a lot of breadth and centralizing a lot of power to the Minister of Education with criteria that’s quite vague and subjective and things like ‘management of schools and property is subject to the order of the Minister,’ that disempowers boards in general,” Younghusband said. “I think he’s the Minister of today, but we don’t know who the Minister of tomorrow will be. I just think that this is giving a lot of authority to an individual who may not be versed in education and looking at our students directly.”
Trustees were unanimously in favour of writing a letter to the Ministry of Education outlining their concerns with the new Bill and sending a motion against the Bill to the upcoming BCSTA AGM for more discussion and endorsement by trustees across the province.
SD46 board chair Betty Baxter said the letter would be sent soon.
“The Bill is at first reading. I don’t know the number of days the legislature is sitting but it can be passed in a very short time and the only way it would disappear would be if the session of the legislature was closed, in which case the Bills come off the table,” Baxter said. “We want to get our information in before the Bill is passed.”
