Diane Wilmann's (Frog Hollow) Presentation to the VSB December 12, 2007

Full Presentation To VSB December 12th

Good Evening, my name is Diane Wilmann, Director of Family Programs at Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House. I live in the Garibaldi neighbourhood and I am the mother of two school aged children, one of whom was fortunate enough to spend her Grade Four Year at Garibaldi School.

Let me begin by saying that there are few who would argue that a school population of 40 can be sustained in an urban context. The issues facing the school board in terms of budgets, declining enrollment and lack of Ministry Funding for new mandates around Early and Lifelong learning are real problems that need to be addressed. Not problems which can be addressed easily, but problems that the Vancouver School Board need not face alone.

If we agree that the current situation is not tenable, where to we go from here?

That depends on what matters to us - and what we willing to do for the things that matter.

Does it matter to us that according to the UBC research body HELP that 45.8 % - think about it almost ½ - of children in this community arrive in school vulnerable to failure? Does it matter that out of this group of vulnerable kids, in our community, unlike many other parts of Vancouver, most of those kids will be failing to meet expectations by grade four? Does it matter that kids who fail by grade four, will likely continue to struggle, will require expensive additional resources to support their learning, and some will run the risk of leaving school learn nothing so well as their status as failures.

I believe that to these children, to their families, to our community as a whole and anyone involved in education - this matters deeply.

And if it matters deeply, we need to be willing to make stronger decisions than closing a wonderful school in a community of great need. We need to make other choices that locking the gates to Garibaldi and getting back to business as usual, when “business as usual” is failing our children and failing our community.

So are there other realistic solutions? Absolutely.

We are not just a community of need, we are also a community full of people who are creative, resourceful, intelligent and willing to work for a better place to raise their children. We are a community full of young children. We are a community with a committed group of local agencies who need a meaningful partnership with the Vancouver School Board to address the issues we face and support the Board in fulfilling its new mandates for Early Learning and Lifelong learning. We are a community where alternatives such as Fine Arts programming, specialized language programs or home school support programs are in high demand, and could revitalize the school and community – increasing enrollment and lowering student costs of attending the school. We are a community asking for a commitment from the school board to work with us in our diversity; families who are seeking enrichment for their children, families who need extra support. We want to work on assisting the Vancouver School Board to

“ensure the highest quality of learning experiences for all students, with a focus on student engagement, learning and development in a safe, inclusive environment”
(and these words are taken directly from the VSB website)

We need to reinvent Garibaldi so that the needs and capacities of the whole community can be expressed and acted upon. We need to demonstrate that collectively, Garibaldi Annex can become a story where statistics like the 36.1% of adults who did not complete high school (the lowest educational levels outside the downtown eastside), the 45.8% vulnerability of children will not be ignored but instead overcome by new and innovative models of learning.

Frog Hollow provides service to 532 local families with children under six through family resource, daycare and preschool programming. Our summer program at local Clinton park was attended by hundreds of local preschool children, almost all of these families live in walking distance to the school. Frog Hollow family program staff are forced to turn away families with young children on a daily basis – we still simply do not have the space.

In spring 2006 as part of an effort to address this issue, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House met with the Vancouver School Board to explore the idea of possible partnerships at Garibaldi annex. The School Board seemed open and by spring of this year we had worked with other local community service providers to leverage funds from the United Way for a new Early and Lifelong learning project centred at Garibaldi school. Pacific Immigrant Resource Society, Partners in Education (Canucks Foundation), Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver Coastal Health have been working together at Garibaldi Annex since Spring 2007 to provide Family Resource programming, ESL classes and preschool, child and family literacy programs, parenting programs, active living programs and health supports. Since initiating programs 80 families with preschool children have already been involved. We secured $70,000 annually of new money to run these programs. The approach is a team one and the school staff and administration have been very much part of the team. The array of programs offered are open to the whole community – as the EDI information shows – vulnerable children can come from any part of the socio-economic spectrum.

Building something new takes time to demonstrate successful outcomes. Our vision is to continue to offer these programs, work with MCFD to access dollars to add childcare to the facility( we have 100 families currently on our waitlist for spaces and 20 years of experience to bring) and support the Vancouver School Board in working with families to explore new options for school programming at the site. With a meaningful commitment from all partners, the long term possibilities are unlimited and exciting.

So what are we willing to do for the things that matter?

Ignore the needs and capacities of our community, and the future of its children, just hoping that business as usual might somehow result in different outcomes. Or pretend that bigger is always better. Buy into some counter-intuitive notion that huge buildings and hundreds of children is the perfect environment for every six year old. Or should we think a little bit about what David and Tom might say (these are not their real names). David was a classmate and friend of my daughter when she spent her year at Garibaldi Annex. His parents spoke little English, worked hard to provide for David and their family. They had come to parenthood later in life. David lives with Downs Syndrome as well as other developmental issues but was known and loved by students, staff and parents involved at the School. Through the year, my daughter came home and happily shared the successes and milestones achieved by David, as she did her other friends. David graduated together with his peers, his support worker sharing his long list of accomplishments at his graduation to rousing cheers from the audience. Before their journey to the “big school” the Grade Fours were excited to visit their Grade 5 school on an orientation visit. David joined the visit with his buddy Tom. As they walked the corridors, a child from the big school approached Tom and asked him what he was doing hanging out with David, “you don’t look special needs”. I’m not said Tom. David is my friend. With that the tour continued. I am sure Tom has made his transition to the big school and is doing well. I am also sure that his sense of worth, the value that was put upon his accomplishments, that he was known so well to all his small school community gave Tom the foundation he needed to succeed in a bigger school environment and gave David and many others a friendship that they will always value.

So for things that matter, are we willing to shift gears, create a new vision, take the time, energy and effort to approach long term problems in ways that are realistic and innovative and to give all the children in our community, the start they deserve? Tom, David and hundreds of other children living in our community are counting on it.