EXCLUSIVE: Inside the VSB's MACC Program Revisioning Being Called An "Erosion of Public Trust"
VSB Office. Photo By Nicolas Amaya/CBC
UPDATED 9:15 AM SUNDAY FEB 13, 2022: ADDED DETAILS RE OTHER STUDIES & SIX-WEEK MODEL
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The Vancouver School Board's plan to "revision" the Muti Age Cluster Class ("MACC") program has become a highly controversial one, sparking both significant and sustained outrage among alumni, parent, and student program advocates over the District's disingenuous consultation and casual relationship with the truth behind their research claims. Now, program advocates have initiated a (new) petition with over 450 signatures under the SaveMACC group.
After being relatively unchanged for 30 years, the VSB says now is the time to redesign the program through the lens of equity, and specifically, equity in location, access, development, admission, and service. Part of the VSB's revisioning includes changes to the program's duration, from the current multi-year length to a six-week pull-out "Gifted Enrichment Centre" (GEC) model that has students focus on a specific topic, a proposal widely unpopular within the District community.
MACC, short for Multi-Age Cluster Classes, is a gifted education program that provides academic enrichment and social-emotional support to neurodiverse elementary students in Grades 4 to 7, according to the District. All students are required to have a Ministry of Education "P" (gifted) designation to attend.
Neurodiversity is the viewpoint that brain differences are normal, rather than deficits, and encompasses a spectrum of neurodevelopmental differences like ADHD, autism, and learning disabilities, according to Understood, an American neurodiversity advocacy group.
Currently, there are 4 MACC classes in the District with a total of 80 available seats, 73 of which are filled this school year, according to the VSB. Elementary students across Vancouver can apply to take part in the program, and generally, stay in MACC before moving to secondary school upon the completion of Grade 7.
Students spend anywhere from two to four years in MACC depending on what grade they enter, and the program has received substantial praise from recent alumni and current students alike. Many have shared with trustees, management, and The Nest how MACC helped them, and why the program is so important.
"I was given the opportunity to accelerate and enrich myself in various subjects, developed important life and social skills, and thrive in an environment that supported me rather than crushed my ambitions," says Alice Mandlis, a MACC alumnus and current VSB student.
Mandlis, like many alumni, are against the VSB's GEC proposal.
"Personally, I am incredibly opposed to the cancellation of the MACC program. The new program which is implemented as a ‘replacement’ has absolutely no correlation to the original goals of the program and it is completely unsuited for children whose needs are now completely neglected."
Aija Tso, also a MACC alumnus and current VSB student, told The Nest she sees the GEC model as "disruptive to continuity of learning," and said what the District is proposing is not comparable to the MACC she attended.
In recent days, SaveMACC has been publishing brief statements from MACC parents on how the program impacted their children. "I have 2 kids who are both attending [the VSB's] MACC. My daughter has been in the program for almost 4 years. MACC provides the exact environment needed to support neurodiverse students for several years," reads one parent's account.
In late 2021, the VSB retained Spur Communications, a strategic communications consultancy, to manage the Revisioning MACC engagement process. Spur has worked with the VSB before and features testimonials from VSB Associate Superintendent Rob Schindel and Director of Communications Patricia MacNeil.
In a statement emailed to The Nest, the Canadian Public Relations Society, a professional association of which MacNeil is a member, confirmed that the "act of providing a transparent testimonial on work completed by agencies or contractors on behalf of an organization" doesn't abridge the group's principles of conduct or interfere with the public interest.
MACC advocates say the school board is using the term "revisioning" to gloss over and downplay an effective cancellation of the program. Many parents and students say that they have not been meaningfully consulted, and when virtual consultations were held, they failed to meet expectations, with some even kicked out for speaking their minds.
"I was shocked," said Jessica Wang, a MACC parent who said she was removed from a January 26 consultation held over Zoom after using the chat function to highlight her view that the consultation process was fundamentally flawed. Deborah Stern Silver, a parent of a now-former MACC student, was removed twice from the January 27 consultation after writing similar comments in the chat, once after rejoining.
"I (previously) thought that if that happened at a public consultation, it would be a scandal," Wang said. "I was angry, but mostly shocked," she reiterated.
Wang said she and many other parents felt manipulated by the consultation's restrictive forum and that the process as a whole amounted to a "huge erosion of public trust."
Wang's removal came less than 48 hours after she addressed school board trustees alongside other MACC students and parents on January 24. She was joined by Dr. Christiane Hoppmann (Ph.D.), who requested trustees to visit MACC classrooms and see for themselves what the program has done for learners, urging them to get involved.
The Nest asked all trustees whether they support the GEC proposal in replacement of MACC, as well as whether they intend to visit, and received a response from Janet Fraser, as Board Chair on behalf of the group.
"Changes to programs are operational; the Board approves policy changes. As experts in education, District staff often revise or adjust programs and service delivery models in order to meet the current needs of students," Fraser wrote.
Fraser assured families, "trustees have heard feedback from delegations, direct emails, and the virtual sessions, one of which I attended," and said that the Board looks forward to reading the Spur Communications feedback report due mid-February.
As for the visitation request, Fraser said, as the school liaison for Osler Elementary, where two MACC classes are located, she has visited on several occasions and seen the work of program students first-hand. But, she said, "following the public health orders, the District is limiting the number of in-person visitors at schools, and as such, trustees are limiting their visits to schools at this time."
On February 7, Su-Laine Brodsky, a MACC parent working with SaveMACC, sent a letter to trustees and Superintendent Helen McGregor outlining their concerns. The letter is similar to SaveMACC’s 6-page document that offers detailed positions on each of their issues with the District’s plan.
Both student and parent delegations told trustees on the 24th that the District's December pre-engagement conversations felt like a "betrayal" to student participants. Staff allegedly switched the agenda changing the conversation from the future of MACC to what topics the GECs would feature, without discussion of what the program was all about from a student’s perspective. Spur Communications produced eight-page of those conversations last month.
Other delegations told similar stories, advising trustees that they were very disappointed with the sessions after they left current MACC students "unable to advocate for the program.”
Wang, whose child attended a pre-engagement session in December, told The Nest that conversation moderators discouraged participants from focusing on the MACC of the present, and said that when her child told moderators what MACC did for them, a moderator told them their experience was "a stereotype" and invalided her child's comments.
In multiple delegations, advocates criticized the rigidity of how Spur Communications-facilitated consultations sought feedback, expressing they felt that engagements were set up to only allow for participants to discuss the GEC proposal implementation, not whether or not they liked or wanted it in the first place.
The Nest has obtained video recordings of all four consultations held throughout January, as well as copies of conversations held in the chats of the first two meetings. None of the recordings or documents are being released because they would identify their respective sources, who all wished to remain unnamed due to concern of reprisal against their children currently in the VSB system.
Spur co-founders Natalie Hill and Hilary Farson, joined by their project management consultant Kayla Neville, facilitated the consultations across four Zoom sessions in January. Spur facilitators were supported by the VSB's Liz Hayes-Brown, District Principal of Learning Support, and other management staff in explaining the District's plans.
Generally, each consultation followed a similar schedule. Following a brief introduction by either Hill or Farson, Hayes-Brown delivered a 10-15 minute presentation on the revisioning, after which participants were then directed to a program called Miro, where they could write their feedback on a virtual whiteboard to be captured by facilitators. Recordings confirmed that approximately 60-80 participants were present at each of the four consultations.
Wang told The Nest she attended all four consultation sessions and noted that their tone became increasingly less and less welcoming of a marketplace of ideas being brought to the table. Instead, she felt alongside many parents, that the forum was tailored to limit robust public discussion, pointing to the initial disabling of cameras and microphones and issuing proactive warnings after the first meeting, and the removal of the save-chat function after the second.
The Nest was only able to obtain copies of the chats for the first and second meetings, supporting Wang’s assertion. The video recordings show dozens of openly frustrated participants routinely using the chat function to express disagreement, not only regarding the GEC proposal but also with the format of the consultations.
The first consultation, held on January 18, appeared to allow participants to activate their cameras and microphones freely, and following Hayes-Brown's presentation, featured participants openly asking questions through the chat and verbally after reacting with a raised Zoom hand. Spur facilitators directed more complicated queries to Hayes-Brown and Rosie Poetschke, Director of Instruction - Learning Services.
Participants were then directed to the Miro board to engage with four prompts — respectively entitled MACC values, enrichment topics, learning actives, and program length — for written feedback to be recorded and taken into consideration. Approximately 20 minutes was spent on Miro, although some participants wrote the chat they felt the program and its prompts didn't allow for them to articulate concerns or feedback well. Several participants in each of the four consultations felt this way.
A zoomed-out view of the different Miro exercises, each with their own prompt. Screenshots taken by The Nest from source’s screen recording.
After the Miro phase was finished, a second question period moved the consultation past its scheduled end.
"Recognizing the conversation that's been percolating and some of the comments in the chat, I'm wondering if we might be able to address just a few points that have arisen," Hill said. "I think what might be best is for us to, instead of opening it up with just six minutes left, try and grab some of the key themes that we've heard, and have either ourselves or some of our experts from the District respond," she suggested.
Questions, including some asked verbally, were taken for another 20 minutes. Participants asked questions around the specifics of the proposed transition, stakeholder and expert consultation, and the research informing the VSB's plans. Reactions were mixed, and multiple MACC parents appeared displeased or wrote in the chat of their displeasure regarding the adequacy of the District's answers.
However, the subsequent recordings showed, that the next three consultations held on January 20, 26, and 27, did not feature as much discussion or the same degree of openness as the first.
The second consultation, on January 20, began with Farson "introducing a couple of agreements," asking the group of nearly 70 to "adopt a really respectful attitude towards each other, both in our live Zoom comments but also in the chat."
"If comments begin to create an unsafe space for everybody or if we're not sharing the floor, we'll have to enable the mute function and also disable our chat," Farson warned.
Based on The Nest's review of the January 18 consultation footage and chat text, no participants created an unsafe space through their conduct, verbally or written. All remained civil throughout the discussion and kept passions tame. Parents who attend multiple consultations later told The Nest they did not appreciate being effectively chilled in their intention to engage in legitimate public discussion.
"For clarity's sake, I want to be transparent about the purpose of today's conversation. In this workshop, we're going to be talking about how the change is moving forward, and not if it's moving forward," Farson told participants. "The District has decided that revisioning programs to be more accessible and equitable is a top priority, so we know that some level of change is coming." The same lines were repeated to participants at the beginning of the next two consultations as well.
When it came time for participants to inscribe their views on the Miro board, the overwhelming majority was in opposition to the VSB's GEC proposal, criticizing the staff for ignoring the dual social-emotional and academic enrichment missions of MACC, and saying the GECs would fundamentally serve a different purpose leaving students without essential supports. The proposal's unpopularity was observably clear, as was the contentious nature of the discussions across all four meetings, but particularly the last three.
Parents pointed to the facilitators' accusing participants of “comprising” the Miro board’s settings during the January 26 consultation as an example of the tense atmosphere.
"[It] seems like we've had our settings comprised here, and we're sorry that some participants have chosen to engage this way," Hill said, without offering evidence.
Miro operates much like Zoom, or similar remote conferencing platforms, which generally feature a host with permissions to schedule, add, and remove participants, as well as grant and revoke program abilities such as camera and microphone usage. Spur gave all participants access to the Miro board through a link that doesn’t require them to register a profile and allows them to freely view boards. If a host enables editing permissions, visitors will be able to edit and comment on boards.
But even with editing permissions enabled, Miro users with visitor access don’t have any administrative capabilities, and according to a Miro technical page, visitors are specifically unable to, among other things, “change board sharing settings” and “lock/unlock objects on the board.” Those abilities are only available to users with host settings, so it likely wasn’t even possible for Spur’s settings to be comprised by a participant, unless they somehow ended up with administrative capabilities over the program. Why Spur accused participants of engaging in those acts, despite clear technical hurdles, remains unclear.
Spur Communications declined to comment on this story, saying as an external consultancy they cannot speak on behalf of the VSB, and forwarded our inquiry to the District.
Spur is currently compiling the feedback collected through consultations into a report due mid-February, and if conducted objectively, will likely reveal the same themes The Nest found after reviewing the recordings; parents, current students, and alumni are overwhelmingly against the VSB's "revisioning" of MACC and want to see the program continue, not replaced with GECs.
Various screenshots the “other thoughts” board from multiple consultations taken by The Nest. Note that this specific board is where most of the direct opposition to the program was written, and many noted that the other questions posed on different boards were not relevant to the discussion as to whether the VSB’s GEC proposal had the public’s approval.
Many said this isn't the first time they've experienced disingenuous consultations, and emphasized that the VSB's effective cancellation of MACC is part of the much larger, systemic issue of stakeholders, including parents, students, and teachers, being cut off from the decision-making process.
Shaun Kalley, former DPAC chair, told The Nest the parent community has "a deeper concern that the trustees have walled themselves off and are not even trying to understand the changes that are being made and are therefore out of touch with parent concerns over these changes and parent concerns in general."
"The MACC engagement, however, is just one in a string of engagements over the last three years that parents have consistently said seemed intentionally designed to not let them raise their actual concerns. I've used the phrase ‘decision-driven data making’ to describe these engagements which have presented certain key decisions as having already been made, with parents and others merely being asked for their views on secondary, often trivial, issues."
"This should greatly concern trustees because they are not being given opportunities to make fully-informed decisions. This should also worry the public greatly because their elected representatives are not making fully-informed decisions," Kalley wrote.
Both Kalley, as well as Gord Lau and Vik Khanna, the current respective Chair and Vice-Chair of DPAC, agreed that Administrative Procedure 106 - District Public Engagement, needs to be revised to allow for democratically elected trustees to have more involvement and control over consultations. Without trustee oversight, management has autonomy over the consultation process, which has led to significant frustration among the public.
Lau told The Nest that DPAC intends to write to trustees specifically regarding MACC and that the council's executive "has taken a position in favour of continuing the MACC program in its current full-year format."
This latest round of engagements has damaged the public's confidence, with many saying the Learning Services department's misrepresented research and the woefully inadequate Spur consultations are undermining the credibility of the public education system in Vancouver.
Brodsky told The Nest that VSB's GEC proposal widens the gap between what private schools and public schools offer gifted students.
"The wealthiest families always have the option of buying what their kids need when the public school system fails to provide it," she says. On the other hand, those who cannot afford to go private will be stuck in a tough position.
The Nest reached out to the Gifted Children's Association of British Columbia ("GCABC"), regarding the MACC changes, and their board of directors organized for Maureen McDermid to speak on behalf of the organization in an interview. McDermid is a former GCABC board member, special education teacher, director with the Choice School for Gifted Students, consultant in private practice for schools and parents, and has worked with the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children.
McDermid says she applauds the VSB for operating a MACC program for 30 years, as well as the fact that they are taking the opportunity to improve it. But, she, like many, has considerable concerns.
When asked what amendments she would advise the VSB to make to their GEC proposal, she said "lose the [six-week model].”
"It really doesn't make sense to me," McDermid said, "if we identify [a] child, as for instance, having ASD, do they only get to be supported for their ASD in six-week chunks?
"I just think [the six-week model is] incredibly disruptive. It's more disruptive, for instance, in my perspective than saying that 'Friday is enrichment day' and bringing kids in every Friday, so they get four days out of the week in their home school with their friends...and then there's one day to connect. Even that would be a better model from my perspective. And I have taught that model," she said.
"There are two groups of special needs children for whom community is absolutely central. One is the community around children that are deaf or hard of hearing, and don't have any speech as well...It just doesn't make sense from any aspect that we would not bring those children together to learn from each other and with each other. And the other community is the gifted community. There are not that many of them. They have unique needs," McDermid explained. "They need a peer group."
In regards to the VSB's planned equity in admission approach based on teacher and student-self identification, McDermid said that’s a good place to start, but staff should always collect and consider a constellation of factors to ensure they have all the information they need. McDermid pointed to the BC Ministry of Education’s manual for special education, which instructs educators to do just that.
The manual says “no single criterion should be established for access to or exclusion from services for students who are gifted. Rather, identification and assessment should be carried out using multiple criteria and information from a variety of sources, all of which are valid components for identification.” It goes on to list several sources, including teacher observations, student records, educator, parent, peer, or self-nomination, interviews, and formal assessments, the last of which McDermid advised the VSB not to ditch.
"There is a place for that psychoeducational assessment", McDermid said, explaining that they examine not only the cognitive and intellectual development of the child, but also can uncover things about behaviour, executive functioning, and learning predispositions. McDermid said she often turns to those assessments when making decisions regarding a potential designation because she wants all the help she can get in planning for a child's life.
Brodsky told The Nest that leaving gifted identification to teachers and students is concerning, writing that teachers may not be adequately familiar with gifted learners, and MACC students' social-emotional struggles feature a lack of self-confidence, dissuading self-identification. Brodsky said relying on this type of identification risks greater proportions of gifted students being from "higher socio-economic classes ...white, not disabled, fluent in English, and born in Canada."
McDermid shared that in the absence of MACC, unless a student who would otherwise require a MACC-type service found themselves with a teacher with a background or professional development in special education, or with an available educational assistant, that student would not get the level of support they need.
"Not just that they need," McDermid corrects, "that I believe, equitably, they are entitled."
In an email sent Monday, GCABC told The Nest they share the concerns of many parents and are actively examining the VSB's literature review. In McDermid's interview, she explained that "research provides us with a description of the study that was undertaken and the results, and then some general discussion. And I found it interesting that the general discussion was interpreted [by the VSB] the way it was in a number of cases."
"It's akin to 'let me find the set of statistics that is going to prove what I want to prove'."
SaveMACC agrees, having scanned the research as well. Their position document states boldly, "several of the studies VSB cites are taken out of context, misrepresented, or are actually supportive of the [current] MACC structure."
On social media, parents have routinely criticized the District for their decision-based evidence-making, rather than evidence-based decision-making.
Two weeks ago, The Nest investigated the six-week model's claimed base in research and reviewed all relevant studies listed on the VSB's "Best Practices" document. No reference to the six-week model was found. After asking them where within that list the six-week recommendation was, they sent an unlisted 2012 study conducted by Egyptian researchers in Saudi Arabia that supposedly supported that claim.
McDermid pointed out that Saudi Arabia has a substantially different education system, especially with respect to gifted education, and is not be adequately comparable to British Columbia’s in the MACC discussion. Two weeks ago, The Nest noted Saudi Arabia maintains gender-based segregation of students, and it is possible that this study was only conducted on male students.
The Egyptian study used an experimental six-week model to examine the effects of the program on 20 students compared to 22 students in the control group. Focussing on three aspects of learning — creative, practical, and analytical abilities — the study found that program students experienced statistically significant growth in their creative and analytical abilities, but no statistically significant growth in practical abilities. The study went on to emphasize in its discussion that practical abilities are an essential component in the design of future gifted programs, and are increasingly becoming a benchmark for success.
Key in analyzing the study in the context of the VSB's citation is that they say it supports the efficacy of the six-week model and therefore recommends it. But the study doesn't actually address the question of a recommended program duration in the first place, because duration was not the researchers' focus. The only comment researchers made relative to the appropriateness of the length of programming was to say that in their experiment, it was insufficient to support students' growth in practical application.
"The structure and length of the enrichment program in this study did not successfully support [growth in practical abilities]."
When asked why The District was misleading the public regarding the six-week research-based recommendation, VSB Communications misquoted the same Egyptian study again and attacked The Nest's journalism suggesting the publication was spreading fake news.
In a statement emailed to The Nest, District staff mentioned the Egyptian research, and hyperlinked the phrase "23 page-study". But, instead of the actual study appearing upon visiting the URL, The Nest was directed to a webpage prominently displaying the words "Journalism, Fake News, [and] Disinformation", which could only be interpreted as a passive-aggressive way of ridiculing our coverage.
What happened when The Nest clicked on the “23-page study” hyperlink; they called us fake news.
Interestingly, the webpage is a UNESCO document that appears to have been used for its convenient accusatory cover art, but within the 122-page PDF it makes the comment of warning news media against "being manipulated by actors who go beyond the ethics of public relations by attempting to mislead or corrupt journalists into spreading disinformation."
And, ironically, right below that, it warns journalists of "becoming [the] target of lies, rumours and hoaxes designed to intimidate and discredit them and their journalism, especially when their work threatens to expose those who are commissioning or committing disinformation.”
An ironic passage.
As it turns out, the UNESCO report is an academic paper designed to support journalists worldwide in covering individuals and entities espousing mis/disinformation, not a take-down of news media spreading lies as it was seemingly sent by the VSB to suggest. It was subsequently taken into consideration and evidently quoted when producing this report.
The email, as usual, did not have any name included in the signature, despite it using first-person pronouns such as "I".
The Nest's Editorial Board ruled unanimously to release the email exchange between ourselves and the District, believing it to be in the public interest. It can be found here.
Regardless, the District reiterated that the Egyptian study that indicates the six-week model is well supported in research and told The Nest we got it wrong when we fact-checked them two weeks ago.
So to examine the District's assertion and evaluate its factuality, especially considering their accusation, five editors were quickly mobilized to independently re-analyze the entire study. Editors then debated their findings for over an hour, determining that The Nest did get it right the first time and that the VSB misrepresented the study's findings for a second time.
Editors concluded it was demonstrably impossible by virtue of logic and literacy for an individual to objectively come to the conclusion the VSB reached having read the entire study. Studies are meant to be read in their entirety.
The District also provided The Nest with "just some of the quotes [taken] directly from the study" that referred to examined students' creative and analytical improvements during the experiment. The two subsequently pasted passages were instantly recognized for their mischaracterized nature, and were selected out of context.
Usage of this study does not support the claim that the proposed new duration of the program is researched-based, nor does it make any recommendation or suggestion. It is irrelevant to that claim, and the number of weeks is purely coincidental. It appears cherrypicked and is also the first result when one enters "gifted program 6 weeks" on Google Scholar.
However, the best way to understand the study’s irrelevance is to read it for oneself, which can be done with this annotated copy produced by Nest editors.
The District also assured that “this was one of many articles that supported the six-week Gifted service model,” but did not include or reference any others. In the fourth consultation, Hayes-Brown mentioned around 60 documents were considered in the GEC proposal.
And most notably, the Egyptian study was entirely silent on the social-emotional aspect of students. McDermid and SaveMACC both said that six weeks is insufficient to support social-emotional needs, and says many may suffer without a dedicated multi-year program.
With virtually no support from the public, VSB management is downplaying and in some cases silencing the concerns of many in the District while knowingly spreading mistruths. A frustrated constituency has gone over management's heads' to the Board of Education, with little confirmed success. Now, fed up with their local school board, some are considering appealing to MLAs and requesting the intervention of a higher level of government, with consequences that may manifest themselves in the 2022 municipal election.
But between misrepresented studies, parents being kicked off consultation calls, and the Vancouver School Board decrying "fake news", it's easy to forget who MACC, and this story, is about: students.
"If the goal of the VSB is to help students thrive, why is it considered acceptable for them to force students into environments that hinder their progress?" Mandlis asks.
In the District's quest for equity in education, nearly every stakeholder says their GEC proposal is everything but that.
"The entire reasoning behind [cancelling] MACC is based on equity — if equity is about giving everyone different tools that will help them succeed, why is the one program suitable for academically high achieving [gifted] students being taken away?"
With thanks to Editorial Board members Hannah Azad, Erika Chung, Jessica Kim, and Stephen Kosar for editing this coverage. This was indeed a team effort.