The Greater Victoria school board has bowed to public pressure and backed away from a proposal to bump students with special needs from Victor School and turn it into an elementary school.
In an unanimous vote Monday night, trustees agreed to remove Victor from consideration as a catchment school and directed the superintendent to investigate other options.
Parents, who led a public battle to save the school, hailed the board’s decision as a win for Victor’s students, who have a range of disabilities and medical conditions.
“The fact that [the trustees] all voted for it was a huge shock to me,” said Marcus Pollard, whose 15-year-old son Nathaniel has autism and attends Victor School in the Fernwood neighborhood.
“I think they just realized it was the right thing to do.”
Pollard, who helped lead a #VictorWeHaveYourBack social media campaign, said the board recognized that Victor parents were resolute.
“I think that they absolutely knew that we weren’t going away,” he said. “I know that they were shocked by the level of support we got and by how quickly we had mobilized.”
Parents said they were blindsided by the proposal to use Victor School for kindergarten to Grade 5 students beginning in 2020. The idea emerged from the district’s ongoing review of school catchment boundaries as officials look for ways to deal with rising enrolment and limited space.
In a letter to parents, the district said it would begin by phasing kindergarten and Grade 1 students into Victor School, and that some existing students would be able to complete their education there, while others would move to an undetermined location.
School board vice-chairwoman Ann Whiteaker said trustees likely would have removed Victor from the process at some point anyway, but recognized that parents and families needed to know sooner rather than later.
She said the decision allows for other voices to be heard in the ongoing review of school-catchment boundaries.
“When you’ve got one voice that seems to be monopolizing the discussion, it’s not providing us with the consultation that we need,” she said. “So we just jumped them along a little bit, just to perhaps reassure them.
“I think it was a conclusion that was already going to happen anyway.”
Trustee Ryan Painter credited the advocacy by Victor parents for persuading the board to leave Victor School as it is.
“I’ve received several emails from Victor parents saying that they’re going to sleep easy now, knowing that their school is safe,” he said. “And I’m just very happy and thrilled that we’ve moved forward in this direction and that there’s some sense of security for these parents.
“At the end of the day, it’s chalked up to Victor parents and how committed they were to making sure that the board heard them.”
Pollard said the successful fight to save the school could result in other positive changes as well, such as the creation of a standing committee on special needs education.
“If we can get that all across B.C., I think that would just be amazing,” he said. “One thing that became really clear is they really didn’t think about [us]. It wasn’t anything malicious, they just didn’t think about our school or how this decision would affect us.”
Pollard said the other thing that became clear during the fight was that a lot of people in the city didn’t know anything about Victor School or the students that it supports. “So that’s pretty cool that we now have a spotlight shone on our amazing kids.”
