When the kerfuffle erupted about school districts reducing their operating expenditures by eliminating, as described by government, “low hanging fruit,” the targets were obvious: administrators, counsellors, librarians and special education teachers.
The implication was clear — if you were not teaching in a classroom, you brought nothing of value to public education.
Then, when districts had made a series of difficult decisions about operating without these key personnel, the government restored some of the money saved and announced it “will be flowing into classrooms.”
If the public does not understand why there is such a gap between educators and the credibility of elected politicians, it is because politicians continue, quite happily, to showcase their lack of any insight into the complexity of how the public-education system operates in the best interest of kids.
Here it is in simple terms: Not everything of value to kids happens in a classroom.
Take secondary-school counsellors. They do not teach in classrooms, but are still counted as part of the formula that determines a school system’s operating expenditures.
As the parent of a secondary-school grad, I always kept in close contact with the counsellor. This was not because of any behavioural issues but because of the 172-page Handbook of Procedures for the Graduation Program.
I knew it was a major part of the counsellor’s job to fully understand the implications of that handbook as they might apply to my son’s course selection, qualification for various post-secondary institutions, course retakes, if necessary, and course equivalency.
The final 20 pages of the handbook dwell on the topic of “adjudication,” which requires, among other things, that somebody ensure all decisions regarding adjudication are based on evidence documented in student files.
I’d quote directly from this public document were it not for the 188-word warning at the beginning about how heavily copyrighted the information is, never to be copied or quoted directly by those other than authorized persons.
A related critical role for secondary-school counsellors is to be absolutely up to date with the general admission requirements for B.C.’s 11 post-secondary colleges and institutes and 11 public and five private universities.
Specific programs and faculties at institutions often have additional entrance requirements beyond the general institutional requirements, and entrance requirements at all institutions are constantly being reviewed. Some institutions accept certain Grade 11 and Grade 12 course as qualification for admission; others do not accept the same courses.
It is up to the counsellor, for example, to accurately make sense of the University of British Columbia’s published general admission requirements: “Final grade of 70 per cent in Grade 11 or Grade 12 English (or equivalent course, including provincial examinations where applicable), graduation from high school with a minimum average of 70 per cent (or higher for many programs), completion of specific high-school courses depending on where you’re applying from and what program(s) a student is applying to.”
Unless a counsellor is right on top of what that means for every student who aspires to an undergraduate program at UBC, opportunities could be lost.
As the Ministry of Advanced Education explains to students on its own website: “Post-secondary education is the key to your future, so it is vital you make choices that are a good investment of your time and money, and that can lead you to your goals.”
Good advice, until we consider that, in the eyes of parents and the voting public, the role of the non-teaching secondary-school counsellor is diminished by references from political folks referring to non-classroom teachers as “low-hanging fruit” to be picked off in the first round of budget cuts.
The same could be said of librarians who are working to move kids safely into the information technology age, or about school administrators whose everyday job it is to balance the requirements of the School Act with the requirements of the teacher contract, the expectations of trustees and parents and the needs of kids.
Political people, one of whose major priorities is to get themselves re-elected, might gain public credibility by demonstrating a better understanding of those educators, both in and outside classrooms, whose sole priority it is to make public education work effectively for B.C.’s 500,000 kids.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
