Early this year, the BC government dismissed all nine trustees for the Greater Victoria School District (SD61) after a prolonged dispute between the school board and Ministry of Education.
In their stead, a sole trustee, Sherri Bell, was appointed by the Ministry of Education and Child Care.
Now, SD61 and the municipalities in which the school board operates have proposed a reform to the electoral areas and distribution of the trustees that are elected to the board.
This move by the BC government has come in response to a series of events that began with SD61 ending their school police liaison officer (SPLO) program.
The SPLO program came to an end after a long process to research if the SPLO program was effective, and if students felt safe at school while police officers were present.
Specifically, their research found that marginalized students did not feel safe in schools with police officers present and there was not enough evidence to prove the effectiveness of the program. Ultimately, SD61’s school board found that police and school resources would be better spent elsewhere.
“Police are being asked to fill in gaps in student support and to take on roles that should be filled by individuals with specialized expertise, such as youth and family counsellors and social workers,” said Nicole Duncan, Education Chair for SD61, at the time the program was cut.
Following this, the Ministry of Education and Child Care called on SD61 to submit a new safety plan, outlining the roles and responsibilities of the school board, faculty and police within the school.
After three draft safety plans were submitted, the Ministry of Education and Child Care rejected all of them and moved forward with replacing the nine school board trustees with Bell, the appointed representative.
The Ministry of Education and Child Care said at the time that the plans were not sufficient and did not include the perspectives of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.
Looking to the future of SD61’s trustees
To look towards the future, an initiative to zoom out and look at the trustee electoral process was launched by the Township of Esquimalt, and supported by the City of Victoria initially, as well as other municipalities within SD61’s jurisdiction.
“The Township of Esquimalt was the first to ask for this conversation out of our desire to build stronger relationships and reconciliation within School District 61,” says Councillor Tim Morrison, Township of Esquimalt.
“Official Trustee Sherri Bell responded accordingly by facilitating inclusive collaboration among all our communities, which has resulted in our joint proposal for much needed reform on how we elect our school board and determine fair and equitable representation for the school district in which we all share.”
Now, that endeavour is coming to fruition, as SD61 has launched a public engagement campaign to gauge the response from the community on how trustees are elected.
“Meaningful discussions with Esquimalt Nation, Songhees Nation, local municipalities, and the CRD have resulted in proposed changes,” says Sherri Bell, Official Trustee, Board of Education, Greater Victoria School District.
“Now, we are asking for our community to familiarize themselves with the proposed changes, ask questions, and help identify any other considerations that we reflect on.”
To come up with a meaningful solution, Bell formed a task force, consisting of representatives of the Greater Victoria School District, Esquimalt Nation, Songhees Nation the Capital Regional District, as well as the municipalities of Esquimalt, Highlands, Oak Bay, Saanich, Victoria and View Royal.
The task force has since come up with a solution, which would propose the following electoral reforms:
- Shifting from an ‘at large’ electoral model to a model with seven trustee electoral areas based on municipal and First Nations boundaries— which is currently employed in most school districts throughout the province
- Keeping the number of elected trustees at nine, spread throughout the region
- Distributing the nine trustees amongst the seven electoral areas as follows:
- Esquimalt Nation (1 trustee)
- Songhees Nation (1 trustee)
- View Royal / Highlands (1 trustee)
- Oak Bay (1 trustee)
- Esquimalt (1 trustee)
- Saanich (2 trustees)
- Victoria (2 trustees)
To inform the public about the background of these proposed reforms, members of SD61 and Bell’s task force will be holding an information session on Tuesday, September 9th.
Additionally, people will be able to provide feedback on the plan via an online feedback form between Tuesday, August 5th and Tuesday, September 11th.
SD61 trustee electoral reform information session
- When: Tuesday, September 9th, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- Where: SJ Willis in the gymnasium (923 Topaz Avenue)
