Minutes submitted by Kate Mulligan
Meeting Attendance:
Dan Marriott, Acting Superintendent, VSB
Jennifer Cook, VSB Coordinator, Education Services, Support to Superintendent.
Gary Dobbin, Executive Director, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House
Diane Wilman, Director of Family Programs, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House
Randi Gurholt-Seary, CUPE BC
Hal Milne, Community Member and Member of Garibaldi PAC
Kamal Lal, Community Member and Member of Garibaldi PAC
Agenda:
- Introduction
- Dan Marriott
- Goals/Roles of liaison with VSB
- Overview of community process and vision for the school: some of the emerging options-alignment with VSB broader goals.
- Meeting schedule and VSB resources available.
- Other
- Community Group
Goals/ Roles of liaison with VSB
Dan Marriott will contact Gary and Hal to discuss.
Dan made clear that he would not be able to pre-approve any proposal. His role is one of communication and assisting with any need for information regarding the implications of various options and around process and procedure.
Dan Marriott mentioned that the individuals who signed the list to participate in a “committee” and provided their emails have not been contacted, he will look into it.
Dan was to get back to the group regarding the confusion around another interest group that he had heard made contact. It was thought that he was likely referring to the Community/VSB committee and not a parallel group. He wanted assurances as to how information would be dispersed to the broader Community. Information was provided by Hal as to the communication tree and process.
Community Group:
Frog Hollow’s Proposal will be proceeding with the community’s endorsement as part of the overall proposal put forward.
Community Meeting time will be extended to 9pm at Garibaldi should there be agreement by the Vice Principle of Garibaldi. Dan has spoken with the school Principal to support meetings. Recognized that this would have to be agreed on with the Engineering department as they have a schedule. Cost is considerable to run and keep open but he acknowledged time was needed beyond the 1 hour currently in place; he would talk to departments involved.
Frog Hollow has space to hold community meetings; however, Garibaldi is in walking distance for most people therefore meetings will take place there, should it be feasible.
Dan Marriott stressed the importance of community involvement and support from the community on initiatives. Dan stressed the importance of being unified and having a solid front with openness to community input.
Rumors within the community regarding the possibility for closure led to the reduction of enrollment at the school. Dan said that he would contact DRPC to ensure that they do not refuse registration for Garibaldi as had happened to one family recently trying to register as referenced by Hal. Dan indicated that they would continue to disclose information of the impending closure but accept registration.
Program proposals will be considered by the community on feasibility
Special Programming:
Presently the PAC and Frog Hollow are looking into the feasibility of the following programs: CUPE BC is supporting the PAC, Frog Hollow, and Community in actions that support keeping the school open. CUPE BC is involved to support the collaboration of the partnership between Frog Hollow and Garibaldi CUPE BC and to support Community action. CUPE’s actions of support have to be confirmed by their office.
- French or Mandarin Immersion
- Fine Arts
- Home Schooling
Presently the aforementioned programs have waiting lists.
Dan Marriot commented that special programs such as French Immersion and Fine Arts are “cost neutral”, meaning there are no extra costs to the board to implement French Immersion or Fine Arts programming when compared to regular programs.
Home Schooling: Diane will find out more about program specifics and provide information to access the viability to implement such a program at Garibaldi Annex. Jennifer provided some information on home-schooling.
Gary referred to a special program in New Westminster which is a Distributed Learning School. [Following the meeting, Jennifer confirmed that there is such a school in Vancouver operating out of Sir William Van Horne Elementary jointly with the regular school and is referred to as the “Vancouver Learning Network” (see website: http://www.vsb.bc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/B8AD1772-2938-4088-828B-928B32809734/0/03998004.PDF. In this model, the VSB receives full funding for students enroled in the special program, as opposed to students who simply “register” as homeschooled children. Dan Marriott will look into this model further to assist us in evaluating its viability for Garibaldi.]
Dan Marriott said that a Specialty Program joint application normally takes approximately one year to realize. Applications are jointly done by the School Administration and the Community. They receive the same dollars as regular schools and decide internally how they distribute and use funds.
Gary Dobbin suggested that maintaining the enrollment at a minimum of 100 students would likely be necessary to ensure the ongoing viability of Garibaldi. Dan indicated that the issue as to whether additional children at Garibaldi come from other VSB schools or are “new” students would have to be considered. The value of the property could be an additional consideration, however, there have been no discussions regarding the sale of the building or land to date. The sale of School property would be subject to the right of the provincial and civic governments to claim it for their own purposes.
Questions were raised regarding the stated cost of operating the facility that would be saved if the school were closed ($200K). For example, is the VSB looking at recovering more than this through the sale or rental of the property (“loss of opportunity cost”)?
Action Items:
Dan Marriott agreed to bring the following information back to the group:
- the criteria for creating French Immersion, Mandarin Programs, Fine Arts Programs at schools;
- the criteria for considering Garibaldi for a model similar to the New Westminster Distributed Learning School (which we now know is already established in Vancouver at Van Horne Elementary, so the question is can we create a second Distributed Learning School as part of Garibaldi?);
- would the VSB support us in a bid to request funding for “rent” from MCFD (and others, such as VCH) for community programs run by Frog Hollow at Garibaldi;
- will there be an opportunity for the Garibaldi Community Group to present the final proposal to the VSB in person?
Jennifer Cook agreed to provide information on the following:
1. the number of kids who live within the Garibaldi catchment area but do not attend Garibaldi.
Vancouver Coastal Health was mentioned as a potential resource. We will explore and talk to the Community Developer at Evergreen. Also, Letters of Commitment from Partners such as Coastal Health and MCFD were suggested as a potential source of support.
Next Meeting will be after the Community Meeting Feb/12/2008.
Once again I would like to thank Gary, Diane and Randi and Hal for all their support to keep Garibaldi open.
Meeting Adjourned.
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