September 2021 Hamber PAC Newsletter

Welcome back Parents and Guardians! We would like to extend an especially warm welcome to our new grade 8 parents and students too.

Message from Peter Couch, PAC Chair

Once again we find ourselves at the beginning of a school year with all the excitement of new possibilities.  The lingering impact of the pandemic continues to cast a shadow over our kids as they start classes in a new semester system with seemingly fewer protocols in place as compared to last September. I’m hopeful that the Vancouver school district is prepared to respond quickly with appropriate measures should the need arise with the spread of the Delta variant. In the meantime, we can support the safety of our school with our daily health checks, consistent mask wearing and getting vaccinated. We will continue to advocate for protocol changes as the need arises.

In this inaugural PAC newsletter for the 2021/2022 year, we will cover the following:

  1. Changes to Executive PAC team

  2. Annual General Meeting: September 21, 2021

  3. Follow up on two key issues from last PAC meeting held on May 18, 2021 

  4. Vancouver School District PAC updates

  5. Back to School messages from the BC Confederation of PAC

  6. Resources for Students and Parents/Guardians
     

1) New PAC Treasurer 

As mentioned in our last newsletter, most of the current PAC Executives intend to continue to volunteer on the PAC this year. We want to introduce a new member of the team who will be assuming the duties of Treasurer. Please welcome Renee Seto who will assume Donna Chao’s duties. We’d like to collectively thank Donna Chao for her contributions to the PAC over the years and to leave her to enjoy her family’s last year at Hamber unencumbered. We welcome new parents or guardians to join the team! In particular, we are urgently seeking someone to be our DPAC representative, which allows for representation of the Hamber PAC at the district-wide PAC meetings.  Please reach out to us if you would like more information.

2) Annual General Meeting

We will hold the Annual General Meeting (AGM) at our first PAC meeting of the year on Tuesday, September 21, which will be held virtually. Please register here. During the AGM, parents will vote to confirm the  members of the PAC Executive Committee.  We will ask Donna and our principal Marea Jensen to assist in the voting process.

For reference, Eric Hamber’s Bylaws can be found here

 

You are invited our next Hamber Pac Zoom meeting - Annual General Meeting

When: Tuesday, September 21st 2021 at 7:00 PM

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApde-opjsuGNerwHjWbTAQY40rnRLGigsG

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Should you have questions about the agenda or you wish to add items for discussion, you must email those to us in advance to chair@hamberpac.ca so that we can try to adjust the agenda to accommodate the requested changes within the scheduled meeting time. 

1. Welcome and approval of Agenda & Sept. 15, 2020 AGM Minutes - Peter Couch
2. Election of PAC Executive for 2021-22
3. Chair Report - Peter Couch
4. Treasurer Report - Donna Chao
5. Teacher Report
6. Principal Report - Marea Jensen
7. Other Business - Music Society, Clement Fung

2020 AGM MInutes - Draft

3) Follow up to open items from PAC meeting held May 18, 2021:

At our final PAC meeting for the prior school year, a number of questions were posed to Principal Jensen which were unaddressed due to time constraints. We followed up on these questions with the administration and the school district - please see below for a summary.  If we have missed anything or you have additional questions,  please email them to chair@hamberpac.ca.

SEISMIC UPDATES: If you’ve driven by the school recently, you will have noticed that site preparation is complete and progress on the footings and foundation is gathering momentum. We will continue to ask for regular updates on the construction schedule, as the foundations were to be completed by now. We have asked - and will continue to pursue - an update on the Development Permit that remained unapproved while VSB and Bird Construction addressed issues brought up by the Planning Department at the City of Vancouver at the end of the school year and a timeline update.

LOSS OF HONOURS MATH AND SCIENCE 8 CLASSES:

At the end of the last school year, PAC had learned that Honours Math and Science 8 had been abruptly terminated and immediately pulled from the current year's schedule. This was a shared course between Challenge Studio and the regular school.  Any reductions in learning opportunities are extremely concerning, especially when no reason was clearly given and no notice was provided, including to the students who had already been accepted into those classes.  

The PAC made a delegate appearance to address this issue with the VSB on June 9, 2021. Transcript below:

Thank you Chairperson Reddy

Through the Chair:

Good afternoon Trustees, Senior staff, all attendees.

My name is Peter Couch. 

I am Eric Hamber’s current PAC Chair and joining me on this call is Anne Yu, Vice Chair.

Combined, our families have 5 children in the public school system ranging from grade 5 through to grade 10.

Before starting, I have mixed emotions, while I am excited to have just received my 2nd shot today and all the positives that brings, I’m saddened and need to acknowledge the terrible news that has come to light in Kamloops. My memories as a child who played in those fields are forever changed. In my own first language of Te Reo Maori, Kia Kaha. Forever Strong.

This evening we wanted to share our experiences on 2 fronts. First, as parents of students who are amongst the first at the secondary school level participating in the redesigned curriculum. And, second, as parent representatives who have been fielding many questions and collecting comments from our community throughout our volunteer career at Hamber and our feeder elementary schools, which is 15 years collectively,  so far. 

We believe that the recent, sudden and abrupt administrative decision has impacted a group of incoming grade 8 students that will affect them academically, mentally and socially in ways that we don’t yet know how to measure. After hearing parents recounting stories of the effort that these kids put into considering coming to Eric Hamber from an abundance of choices...it’s a shame that their very first experience at the secondary level is a negative one and that families are left without a voice in this process.  To have these choices removed without notice, denied these students the opportunity to apply for other academic options in the province and this leaves them unnecessarily emotionally and academicaly stressed. 

We also want to share with the committee Hamber PAC's perspective around the gradual elimination of programs in general at the school. 

Hamber PAC was first attuned to the possibility of programming cuts during the school’s seismic process, the start of which predates the current PAC.  While grateful that we are getting a safe school, our new school size is based on dated, single source demographic data that doesn’t consider future yield of density developments in the catchment or coordination with the City of Vancouver’s Community Planning Vision. This left our new school 30% smaller.  My personal involvement at the DPAC level further revealed how student headcount might be managed to meet the utilization of the smaller school. Despite direct questions on this possibility specifically, varying levels of administration explicitly told the PAC and other stakeholders that choice programming will not be jeopardized in the seismic process. 

More recently, we have been made aware of the plan for gradual elimination of programs as a result of the redesigned BC curriculum.

Under the guise of equity, the public school system has abruptly terminated programs which have already had teachers staffed to deliver the courses in the fall. These honours programs are meant to develop talent among young Canadians.  Pulling these courses will ultimately have a detrimental impact on those students specifically who can no longer attend the classes as planned.  This is also a loss for our education system in general, as we forgo opportunities to develop our students to compete on the world stage.  

How can we reasonably expect educators to tailor lesson plans, for a class of approx 30 children, to benefit students at various points on the learning spectrum when the system is not designed nor held accountable to do this? Equity alludes to fairness.  It is fair to give all students the opportunity to reach their full potential, regardless of their learning profile.  The redesigned curriculum does not support this fundamental value. Therefore, equity will, in fact, not be achieved by the new curriculum.

Furthemore, there have been no assurances given that the new curriculum will be accepted by post secondary schools outside of BC.  How is this responsible planning, considering the connectivity of BC to the rest of the world in this day and age? 

If the decision to pull the honours math and sciences programs at Hamber cannot be reversed, then we ask that a champion trustee or committee member put forward a motion to complete a fully researched study to be updated and communicated to the parent community annually on key performance indicators, specifically reporting on which postsecondary institutions throughout North America will accept graduates of the redesigned curriculum and what are their post-secondary graduation rates? 

Thank you for this opportunity to speak and as part  of our transcript submission we’d like to include a petition that supports all that has been shared by the delegations with the committee today. 

Anne and I are happy to take any questions you may have

We weren't asked any questions and we were not permitted to ask questions ourselves during this presentation.

This type of erosion of courses appears to be becoming more commonplace in our public education system and this should be alarming and unacceptable to all parents.  Our schools should aim to give all students the opportunity to reach their full potential, regardless of their learning profile.   If you recall, we struggled last year to get the Foundations Math courses into the course offerings handbook, despite these courses being suited for students who are planning to pursue a post-secondary Arts program, a law degree, or those who have an interest in math and want to take additional elective math courses. Luckily, with dedicated parents and strong advocacy, the courses are now included.  We worry that other choice programs are next to get axed by the school board.  

4) Vancouver District PAC (DPac) News

Hamber Parent Vik Khanna is Vice-Chair this year! Congratulations Vik!

Upcoming DPAC Events

DPAC Committees and Working Groups

Child care Committee:

The committee is focused on encouraging increased access and wider options for school-age care.  Interested parents please contact committee lead Alan at alan.patola.moosmann@vancouverdpac.org

Facilities Planning Committee:

The committee just did a lot of work going through the VSB LRFP and will be creating a detailed Seismic Toolkit. Interested parents please contact DPAC chair at vik.khanna@vancouverdpac.org

Anti-Racism Working Group:

DPAC has struck a working group that is laying the groundwork to create an anti-racism committee to shadow the VSB Anti-Racism Committee, as well as advise DPAC and work in concert with executives in anti-oppression work. Interested parents place contact Karen at karen.tsang@vancouverdpac.org

5) BCCPAC News

BCCPAC - September Newsletter

6) Resources and supports for Students, Parents and Guardians:

Kelty Mental Health at BC Children's Hospital 
Offierng mental wellness resources to children, youth and families including peer support

Returning to in-person school Support for your child/youth

Mindfulness for Teens and Caregivers

Peer support for families

ADHD

Foundry
Foundry offers young people ages 12-24 health and wellness resources, services and supports – online and through integrated service centres in communities across BC.


Covid-19

Helpful resources from the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC)

Information about Covid-19 in Vancouver Coastal Health

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Written by Hamber PAC On