Unsurprisingly, the catchment boundary review of the Greater Victoria School District has met with some opposition from parents. In particular, parents from the three schools housing programs of choice are advocating to save their programs, having seen the successful outcomes for their own children.
This is understandable, as the lens for most parents into the school system is the experience of their own child or children. It is perfectly natural for parents to want what is best for their children.
Parents who choose a school other than their neighbourhood school, or a program of choice, almost certainly do so out of love and caring for their child.
Yet the lens of school trustees is and should be a different one. They are tasked with ensuring that the school system, as a whole, meets the needs of all children. This means all children, regardless of background, race, gender, disability or socioeconomic status, deserve the right to attain an equal educational outcome as their peers. From this vantage point, programs of choice or schools of choice have a distinct set of potential advantages but also some very real disadvantages.
Programs of choice, or indeed all specialized programs, can create opportunities otherwise unavailable. But by definition they are offered to only a subset of the school population. The question then arises — who is benefiting from these choices and is this equitable?
The three schools and programs potentially affected by the proposed catchment reorganization fall into two distinct categories.
While the programs at Cloverdale and South Park provide alternative educational programs potentially suitable to any child, but actually selected by particular families, the program at Victor is different. This program targets a specific group of students for whom standard programs within the regular catchment schools were or are unable to meet their child’s educational needs.
From the standpoint of equity, the program at Victor should arguably be maintained, as the district decided to do this week. Its purpose is to ensure an equal outcome for students who otherwise face significant challenges and likely will not be successful within the standard programming stream. Just as some students are provided additional supports and resources with an individualized education program because they face unique and specific challenges, so these children should be provided with specific and unique programs tailored to their needs where full integration has not been successful.
However, the parental-choice programs at Cloverdale and South Park serve a different purpose. They allow parents to select a school based not on specific, documented educational needs of students, but rather the individual choice of the parents. While perhaps appealing in the abstract, there are two significant problems.
The first is that, in reality, not all parents and children have access to these programs of choice. It is well documented that barriers such as language, immigrant status, family income and access to transportation mean that many families are excluded from these choices.
The second problem is the impact these choices have on all the other students in the school system. When one group chooses to attend special schools or programs, this affects the diversity of both the choice group but also the remaining school population. The effect can be informal segregation, typically along socio-economic lines. This is the finding of extensive research by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2012 of school-choice programs across a wide range of member nations.
The Greater Victoria School District has specifically set out to improve the equity in educational opportunity for all children in the district.
With this in mind, trustees were right to review the proposal to close Victor, which is specifically targeted for children with special educational needs, but should carry through the decision to re-designate Cloverdale and South Park as catchment schools.
Tara Ehrcke is a teacher, past-president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association and a South Park graduate.
