These are the voices of parents as they shared very personal and deeply moving messages at focus groups with the Ministry of Education, facilitated by SFU’s Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and how the proposed changes to online learning (OL) in regards to Bill 8 - 2020 will significantly impact their families:
“Current stress levels are at an all-time high; there is no capacity left for big, poorly planned changes.”
“The time, effort, and energy it has taken to formulate learning programs that meet and exceed the diverse learning needs of learners needs to be recognized”.
“We need to have flexible, and varied options that meet the needs of all kinds of students.”
Assistant deputy education minister Eleanor Liddy began the discussion by acknowledging it was an oversight that the government did not include the independent sector in the processes leading up to Bill 8 and supporting policies, and asked parents to contribute toward policy-making of the new modernized IOL/OL system.
麻豆社国产parents addressed these key points:
*Online learning schools are offering and providing learners with supported and expert-led education that is meeting and exceeding outcomes for children with diverse needs;
*We have worked hard to find systems that offer diverse, flexible, comprehensive, personalized, accessible, affordable, and equitable education;
*We have had to look outside of the district to find IOL/OL programs that incorporate blended learning, align with parents’ philosophical views, allow for learning contextualized within one’s religious views, and are inclusive of a wide range of learners, especially children with special education needs;
*Continuity of education and protection of IOL/OL programs our children are currently flourishing in is paramount to their continued success, mental health, confidence, and contribution to society;
*There was a collective uncertainty of the future of our children and their education systems, and a corresponding unease and concern. Limitations on regions of service as detailed by Bill 8 and supporting policies included IOL schools in scope, while the reviews upon which those policies are based included only the public sector.
*IOL schools that represent 57% of IOL/OL learners, have so far been vastly underrepresented and have not been included in significant policy changes that affect them.
MLA Dan Davies’ addressed these concerns in the Legislative Assembly on October 27th, 2021, and was echoed by Jackie Tegart, opposition critic for education, who expressed in a letter to Jennifer Whiteside, minister of education, “As you are aware, IDL supports a vast proportion of students with special learning needs and the independent system has the two largest special needs high schools in the province. New district boundaries for independent distributed learning schools (IDL) will restrict the availability of IDL programs for students who have specific religious, cultural, or special learning needs. This goes against the wishes of a significant number of parents and students who rely on the programs and resources offered by IDL schools that cater to their specific learning needs. If a special agreement isn’t granted to the IDL schools, the impact on students will be significant.”
There needs to be a step back to reexamine why we got to where we are today in this ‘new modernized’ IOL/OL system, and begin afresh with collaboration — inclusion of Indigenous Peoples, rural communities, and learners with special education needs. Just because there is an OL option within one’s community, does not necessarily entail that it is expert-led, comprehensive, and offers the support we as unique individuals want and need for ourselves and our families.
AnnaMarie Rutishauser
Squamish
*Please note, we have corrected the photo caption. It originally incorrectly identified the woman in the picture as AnnaMarie Rutishauser. We also deleted a quote at the letter writer's request as its exact wording could not be verified.
