EDITORIAL | Nine New Year’s Resolutions for the VSB
Photo Credit: National Today
As 2023 comes to a close, many students find themselves setting goals for the new year. Likewise, the Editorial Board has a few changes in mind when we look ahead to 2024. However, we can’t implement them on our own. The shifts we would most like to see occur are district-wide, and require the help of the VSB’s Board of Trustees. That’s why we’ve conveniently created a list of nine new year’s resolutions for the VSB — one for each trustee on the board.
1) Reinstate Honours Programs Across the Board
During their 2022 municipal election campaigns for School Board positions, members of Ken Sim’s ABC Party promised to bring honours programs back to Vancouver schools. ABC now holds the majority on the school board, and honours programs are still in limbo. These educational opportunities had previously been scrapped by the VSB in 2022 (see the Vol. 12 Issue 1 editorial). So far, little progress has been made towards reinstating them. In an era of declining academic outcomes among students, the extra learning options that honours programs provide are needed now more than ever. Ken Sim and his party must respect the pledges made to their voters and bring back these important services. This is a promise that must be fulfilled.
2) Tighten Policies On Plagiarism and Late Work
A document issued by the VSB in January 2023 required teachers to stop penalizing students with reduced marks for plagiarism, work turned in late, or work not submitted at all. This astonishing policy should be revoked and the alarming trend that it fuels should be halted.
The policy statement claims that “taking marks off for late work or for work not handed in distorts the grade and doesn’t provide an accurate description of student learning.”
Penalising students for late or unsubmitted work is a central and fundamental principle of ensuring responsible work habits. If students have no deadlines and lose no marks for missed work, what incentive is there to complete any work at all?
This VSB policy claims that “the mathematical damage that is done to a student’s grade when zeros are assigned is not a proportional response” to plagiarism or late work. However, the Editorial Board believes that these actions should be met with consequences. Otherwise, how will students be assessed accurately on the amount of effort that they put in?
The report goes on to declare that “a zero for academic dishonesty without the opportunity to rewrite or resubmit without penalty will result in that same inaccuracy.” This effectively removes any consequences for plagiarism, and with that, any disincentive to plagiarise. With the rise of AI tools such as ChatGPT, schools must now be stricter about plagiarism than ever before. If there are no defined consequences for plagiarism, what’s to stop the student from simply plagiarizing again? Students in the proposed system will no longer be motivated to submit their work themselves in the proper time frame.
Though the VSB may believe that when a student receives a zero, “they are effectively being told that they do not need to do the assignment,” which is “the opposite of accountability,” the Editorial Board contends that firm penalties for academic dishonesty will help students make ethical choices in the future. If a student receives a zero on an assignment that they plagiarized, they will be encouraged not to do so later on in the course, knowing that being caught again will again be a detriment to their mark.
Additionally, giving free marks to intentionally underachieving students removes incentives for any student to complete work. This surprisingly relaxed policy reduces student accountability, despite the School Board’s arguments to the contrary. While students must be given adequate support in order to succeed in their coursework, this VSB proposal is not working towards this. Inequities in education will not be solved by lowering academic standards and diminishing basic principles, but by supporting students that are struggling in their efforts to reach these standards.
Such policies will not prepare students for the world. Life after high school may not provide the same second chances. Students who perform at an objectively low level academically and still receive average marks will move forward in school without adequate understanding of the material being taught. They will continue to fall behind in their future classes. The school system will thus fail at its most crucial objective — teaching its students.
3) Allow Access to Office 365 Outside of Canada
Although the Editorial Board understands that the decision to prohibit Office 365 access outside of Canada is based on security concerns, the benefits to opening up international access outweigh the risks. It would allow students on international trips to access Teams and submit assignments even while abroad. Through Teams and Outlook, students are able to stay in the loop regarding important school announcements which they would otherwise miss. Students who will be visiting relatives over the coming winter break will be cut off from the possibility to submit assignments or receive guidance from their teachers.
Considering how close the US border is to our school — 45.2 kilometres, to be exact — it’s a no-brainer that we should be able to use our school-issued software while abroad, or at least within North America. Students do not have to go far to be blocked from school online services.
While it is possible for students to use a VPN to access Canadian wireless while in other nations, these services are sometimes expensive. Financial inequalities among students should not be discounted.
It is unrealistic for the VSB to assume that students will always be in Canada while completing their schoolwork. The restrictions on students attempting to access Teams outside of Canada should be removed in order to meet the needs of a diverse student community with connections spanning the globe.
4) Establish Consistent Rules and Guidelines for Fundraising and Activities Across the District
Currently, Eric Hamber’s Student Council (StuCo) is prohibited from running various types of fundraisers and events due to school-specific policies. This has impeded their ability to raise money for charities like the CANley Cup and exciting events such as school dances.
Other Student Councils in Vancouver, however, have not faced such obstacles, and continue to organize activities that their counterparts at Hamber are unable to. These inequalities among Vancouver schools are not due to meaningful distinctions between the schools, but differences in their administration. A VSB-wide policy would establish a clear framework for addressing fundraising decisions, reducing uncertainty and discord among school communities.
Hamber’s Grad Committee and StuCo have not been allowed to run any fundraisers involving food, taking many event options off the board. Due to the widespread appeal of food, initiatives such as bake sales and the Griff have historically been very popular in the Hamber community. Some fundraisers blocked this year include a Grad Committee initiative to sell bubble tea and a StuCo bake sale proposal.
Additionally, for legal reasons, StuCo was also not allowed to advertise for online donations for CANley Cup. Due to these and other factors, collected donations were significantly lower than past years. According to an anonymous StuCo member, Hamber raised approximately $2,000 in 2023, a 60 per cent decrease from $5,000 in 2022. The teacher pie event, a success in previous years, was called off due to perceived disagreement with the school’s values. Spirit days like “Adam Sandler Day ''were canceled because some of the actor’s movies were rated PG-13. These overly cautious restrictions are significantly reducing school spirit and student enjoyment based on trivial and alarmist reasoning constantly imagining the worst possible outcomes.
Other VSB schools have had success with events that would transgress our restrictions shows the inconsistency of the school board’s rules. The Editorial Board calls upon the VSB to be more consistent with their regulations. Each rule must be supported by a clear chain of logic that demonstrates why an event might be genuinely detrimental to students.
5) Regulate Food and Drinks Sold at School Cafeterias
An investigation by the Editorial Board in June 2023 revealed that the VSB has no centralized list of the food and drink items sold in VSB secondary school cafeterias. Despite this, the VSB claimed that its contracts with cafeteria suppliers require all food and drinks sold to follow the provincial guidelines for food and beverage sales in schools.
In the same investigation, The Nest discovered several pre-packaged food options at the Hamber cafeteria whose nutritional content did not meet the provincial guidelines. One example of this was a 591mL-size Diet Pepsi in wild cherry flavour containing 71 mg of caffeine, almost three times the permitted amount as per the guidelines.
Additionally, many of the items on the cafeteria menu, such as the “Superfood Salad”, “Vegan Grilled Cheese”, and “Buffalo Quinoa Bowl”, were not actually available to purchase, despite being listed as daily vegetarian and vegan options.
The Editorial Board calls upon the VSB to create open communication between the cafeteria and the student body regarding options, especially if menu accommodations for dietary restrictions are not always available. This can be achieved by having a public centralized list of foods sold in cafeterias, along with their nutritional information.
All students have a right to know what’s in the food they eat, and be given the opportunity to make healthy decisions for themselves. Students with dietary restrictions should not have to worry about going hungry because there aren’t appropriate options for them at school.
It is also important to note that if students and staff are expected to uphold the provincial food guidelines in their fundraising events, school cafeterias should also be held accountable by the VSB to follow them.
6) Increase Outreach for VLN Courses
Many students across the district are met with the need to take an online course, whether due to unavailability of in-person classes or scheduling conflicts. Opting for an online course is presumed to be more efficient and provide more independent learning options, yet the structure of the Vancouver Learning Network (VLN) courses appear to do exactly the contrary. On the VSB website, VLN is described as “a comprehensive, flexible and engaging education program that provides an alternative to traditional in-person learning for many different profiles of students.” In reality, VLN’s system is neither comprehensive nor engaging.
Students are initially provided with exactly 365 days to complete the course material, but there are no strict due dates and rarely any communication with the student. Learning material also varies greatly across courses — some courses provide video lessons, but some only exhaustive notes. The lack of sufficient and consistent course material significantly affects the students’ ability to self-teach, as VLN is essentially the same experience as a student teaching the subject to themselves. In some courses, the guidelines by which students are marked are unclear.
Although aimed to be self-directed, the amount of self-discipline required for a student to excel in online courses is quite extensive. Many students lack support from teachers and family to keep them focused and disciplined. VLN staff and teachers very rarely reach out to students, typically only emailing students a month in advance of the due date. Students are given the option to reach out for support themselves, but with busy school and extracurricular schedules, they may neglect this option and the course altogether. Without support, sufficient resources, and frequent reminders, students taking VLN online courses are consistently set up for failure.
The Editorial Board calls upon the VSB to reframe the VLN online learning structure to better accommodate students’ learning needs. Providing space for more consistent teacher outreach and standardizing course material and marking procedures would provide more clarity to the student and help them find success in independent learning.
7) Clarify Applying–Extending Framework for K–9 Students
In August this year, a new policy was released by the Ministry of Education and Child Care that outlined changes in student assessment. As stated on the VSB website, “The purpose of assessment is to facilitate learning and move it forward in an equitable and inclusive way.” Students in grades K–9 are to be entirely assessed using a proficiency scale with four points: Emerging, Developing, Proficient, and Extending.
These points are in many ways quite similar to the previous letter grade system, simply with different categories. However, the new system is a much less specific assessment of student learning and academic outcomes. While the proficiency scale initially included finer gradations, like Applying-Extending, these have been discontinued. Student performance is now expected to fit into one of four levels, which may not accurately describe the student’s abilities. A student who is “barely Proficient” cannot fairly be put into the same category as a student who is “almost Extending”. Unlike Hogwarts students, the students of Vancouver schools cannot be perfectly sorted into four categories, especially considering our lack of a magic hat to do so.
Within the four-point scale, “Proficient” is supposedly the goal, but many programs and initiatives, like mini schools, look for students with predominantly “Extending” outcomes. What constitutes an Extending grade is entirely subjective — how does one “Extend” in math? Some teachers may award any test with 90% or above an Extending grade, while others may only award Extending grades for perfect scores. As a result, unsubjectively graded subjects like math have become more subjective, jeopardizing students’ grades and their admission to high schools and accelerated programs. Although meant to help students think critically about their learning journey, the four categories seem to box in learning further, disregarding the nuances of student progress. There is less opportunity for varied grades, and we believe this is inherently detrimental to student progress. Grading system variation, with clear and universal guidelines, is needed to ensure that learners are given the best possible chance of success.
8) Bring Back The Original MACC Program
In 2021, the VSB announced their “revisioning” of the Multi-Age Cluster Class (MACC) program for gifted elementary school students. The MACC, which is a comprehensive multi-year program program, is set to be replaced by Gifted Education Centres (GECs). The GECs will allow students to partake in “engaging enrichment activities with new friends and peers” for six weeks at a time. The program will admit up to 720 new students per year — as opposed to the 80 students the MACC currently admits.
Two members of the Editorial Board have previously attended the MACC program. We understand its importance for not only students with gifted designations, but all those who are unable to reach their full potential in a traditional elementary classroom environment. We have witnessed firsthand its benefits for us and our peers.
The MACC’s full-time nature also allows students to fully immerse themselves in the program and make connections with like-minded peers. The GEC programs, however, are not long enough to establish such connections, and simultaneously alienate students from their home school by taking them away for six weeks at a time.
Moreover, the decision to replace the MACC was made by the previous VSB trustees, who largely held different values than the current board does. Reinstating the MACC program would be a logical decision considering the current board’s pledge to reinstate the Honours program.
9) Create a Board-Approved Journalism 11/12 Course
Journalism is a severely underrepresented subject in Vancouver education, and the Editorial Board believes it deserves much more recognition. At a time when the future of journalism is in doubt, it is astonishing that no public high school in Vancouver offers any courses with a specific journalism focus.
A journalism course would allow students to gain valuable insight into the laws protecting freedom of the press in Canada, as well as the state of modern journalism. This knowledge would help students become well-informed Canadian citizens and promote student journalism skills.
Additionally, through a Journalism 11/12 course, student publications like The Nest would be able to receive more funding from the school district — required to create a high-quality publication. An on-timetable course would allow reporters and editors to dedicate more time and effort into their journalistic work, rather than balancing it with a full timetable.
Finally, through journalism, students learn valuable lessons in collaboration. Without constant communication between reporters, editors, and staff, it is virtually impossible to run a publication like The Nest.
However, introducing a journalism course could bring risks of its own. If poorly managed, it could inadvertently reduce students’ journalistic independence by bringing more administration oversight. The intention of the journalism course should be restricted to educating students about journalism, and The Nest should remain an independent entity. While students might submit Nest articles as work for the class and dedicate class time to work on the publication, it is extremely important that the creation of a journalism course must not bring increased oversight or censorship to student publications.
The Editorial Board calls upon the VSB to include a journalism course in the new curriculum in a carefully considered manner that does not disrupt or intrude upon the firm foundations of journalistic freedom that VSB students currently possess.