Moving Paradigms

Dear Elementary Teacher-Librarians in Surrey,

I’m sorry that so many of you are experiencing distress about the Surrey School District’s recent decisions regarding your work. But, perhaps it was inevitable that a Board with a history of banning books  would make a decision to decrease the amount of time elementary teacher-librarians had to encourage children to read books about the world. Wasn’t the writing on the wall a long time ago?

How else to explain the frustrating positions you find yourself in now? Months after being lauded for winning a prestigious national award, the very work that you did to win that award is being undermined by your employers!

Not only have they reduced the time that you will have to collaborate with classroom teachers and students next year but you were recently forced to fight for your current positions or to bump each other out of positions. You were faced with the awful dilemma of either settling for a smaller work contract or displacing a colleague from their position.

What an invidious situation to have been in. It must have kept you up at night.

But there is a simple solution to this agonizing situation: don’t be awesome. 

Long before you won the Canadian School Libraries award, your awesomeness led you all to create Surrey Schools One at the start of the pandemic providing desperately needed support for teachers’ and administrators’ technology needs, curating online curriculum resources, creating slide presentations, and teaching online digital citizenship lessons.

But all that work clearly had no impact on the way your skills were valued when decisions were made about the implementation of the extra ten minutes of prep time for elementary teachers that was recently negotiated between the BCTF and government.

So don’t be awesome.

You might as well post your teacher-librarianship diploma and your Master’s in Library Science on your dining room wall as interesting pieces of art. They’d make good conversation pieces when your friends ask you how you apply what you learned in Surrey’s elementary schools. Starting in September 2023, you won’t be able to.

The strategies you gained in the classes you took on learning to collaboratively plan inquiry-based units of study with classroom teachers will be unused.  You won’t have time to do much anyway! Most of you will only have 20 mins a day to select quality resources and manage collections that support the curriculum and reflect the schools’ diversity while creating lifelong learners and independent readers.  Even your awesome skills can’t make it possible for you to do all that in only 20 mins a day.

The District clearly doesn’t mind that they spent $30,000 on upgrading school libraries to be collaborating spaces only to turn them back into book exchange spaces a few years later.

Libraries just being book exchanges is what is probably most familiar to Surrey School Board Trustees who likely last used the services of an elementary school librarian over 60 years ago when school libraries were silent spaces where books were quietly exchanged. All this new fangled stuff about 3D printing and film editing happening in elementary school libraries is just too 21st century. So different from the 1950s! 

Trust me, worrying about not being able to prepare students for being adults in the 21st century is above your pay grade. Let those worries go. If the Board thinks 20th century style libraries are good enough for students, well, who are we to argue?

20th century librarians were not: 

• Tech liaisons,
• SOGI Leads, 
• New teacher mentors, 
• Safe Harbour hosts,
• D&D Dungeon Masters, 
• Rainbow Club coordinators, 
• Anti-racism Leads, 
• Coding Club captains, 
• Book Club advisors, 
• Student Leadership supervisors, 
• Diversity Club sponsors, 
• Reading Link Challenge supporters, and
• Social & Climate Justice Club organisers.

20th century librarians didn’t squeeze innovative learning activities into lunch times,  recesses and before/after school hours. 

Be a 20th century librarian! 

Forget what you learned in your librarian training, that libraries should be a welcoming, inclusive and safe place for all students, that they should be the heart of the school. Why do elementary schools need a ‘heart’ anyway?

Give yourself a break because I know you’re exhausted by having to explain to people what a red herring argument the District is now making about ensuring that 50% of your time is set aside for collaboration and administration tasks. That’s a distraction from the fact that this year many of you have about 800 minutes of collaboration and administration time each week but will only have 400 minutes per week next year. 

The red herring argument relies on the public not being aware that you’ll have much less time for intermediate students’ book exchanges. Who cares if 9 – 13 year olds who are only beginning to understand the way the world works get any intelligent advice on books to read? I mean they’ve got Google right? 

I wonder what parents will do once they find out next year that book talks, ADST lessons, Makerspace, inquiry projects, author visits, Surrey Schools Book awards, and literature circles may not happen due to the  District’s decision?

I hope they ask Trustees about why they made this horrible decision to decrease the amount of time you will have to encourage young children to learn about the complex and complicated world they’ll inherit.

You keep doing this critically important work so well that you keep winning awards, as four of you did just last week!

If only your being award-winning librarians mattered to the powers that be. It clearly doesn’t.

I’m so sorry.

Sincerely,

Lizanne

A Fan Of Teacher-Librarians

You’re an elementary school teacher. You’ve just received an email inviting you to join a series of mindfulness workshops and your first impulse is to grab the pillow closest to you and to scream into it. 

You scream about that time you tried to get help for a student you learned was cutting themselves, who talks about about committing suicide. There are no counsellors in your school. The child was told that you’d help them. 

You scream about the student who has a combination of  severe mental health and learning difficulties. They didn’t make the cut  for one of the four  spots your school of 500 students has assigned for the attention of a school psychologist. 

You scream about not being able to help  the student who is terrified of taking COVID home to their parent who has cancer when there is no mask mandate after spring break.

Your classroom has no windows.

The school’s ventilation system is 50 years old and cannot be fitted with MERV 13 filters.

Parents have been thwarted when they try to donate HEPA filters to classrooms.

Screaming into the pillow releases all the pent up anger and frustration you’ve been holding for two pandemic years that feel like forever.

You can’t take the gaslighting anymore. The flowery speeches about how important schools are for the mental health of students. The burden imposed on teachers to ensure students’ social and emotional well-being in a chronically underfunded system.

How does one take care of students’ well-being in schools without counsellors?

How does one teach a student who clearly has difficulty learning but who has been on a waiting list to be seen by a school psychologist for 4 years? 

What are you supposed to do about the parent who cries every time you talk about their child’s learning difficulty? They can’t afford to pay for private psychometric testing. They’re already working 2 jobs just to keep their family fed and housed.

How does learning to do four square breathing fix that?

You can’t downward dog your way out of the feeling of being utterly helpless in addressing your students’ needs.

You know because you tried.

When these workshop invitations first came out at the start of the pandemic, you attended some sessions. That’s where you learned about the importance of breathing and being mindful. You’re keeping a journal.  You practice yoga when you still have energy left after teaching, after hours of lesson prepping, and after even more hours of marking.   And, to be honest, all this does help. Sometimes. 

But more and more lately you feel like you’re trying to bail water out of a sinking boat. No matter how hard you work, there’s a hole in the boat that is not being fixed. 

And what’s worse is that there doesn’t seem to be any plans to fix anything. The government’s latest budget shows an effective decrease in funding. When inflation is averaging 5% per month and the education budget has been increased by 3%, you know that cuts are coming.

Your district had a $40,000,000 deficit last year.  To ‘balance’ the budget, they drastically decreased the availability of supports for students. Too many students were left without an education assistant. It breaks your heart to see students struggling every day. 

You can’t imagine what the budget this year will look like. You know you can’t bear to see more suffering.

And so you scream into your pillow. Because that at least gives you temporary relief from the sorrow, from the grief.

Recently parents and teachers who wrote to the Minister of Education expressing concerns about the current pandemic plan for B.C. schools received a response. This blog, created with help from Lisa Davis and Steve Lyne, is a response to that response.

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Thank you for taking time to write and for sharing your questions, comments and concerns. I want to assure you that as we begin the new school year, the health and safety of students, staff and their families is at the forefront of every decision we make as we continue to navigate through recovering from the global COVID-19 pandemic.

B.C. PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
We find it extremely difficult to believe that the health and safety of students, staff and their families is at the forefront of every decision you make. If that were true, BC’s schools would have the same protocols, procedures and responses that schools in Atlantic Canada have had. There, schools are shut down as soon as there are outbreaks and community controls don’t depend alone on the moral integrity of the adults in the community. At this point in the pandemic with BC’s COVID-19 cases averaging 700 per day, can we really make the argument that we are “recovering” from this pandemic? Surely if we were in recovery, we’d be in a position to help Alberta as their hospitals overflow?

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Ensuring students have access to in-class instruction is essential for the social and emotional well-being of students across the province. In-class instruction is vitally important, not only to minimize learning gaps, but because schools play a critical role in our communities, providing essential access to supports such as mental health and food programs during these uncertain times. Thanks to the enormous collective efforts of everyone in the K-12 education system, British Columbia is one of the few jurisdictions that was able to keep schools open during the 2020/21 school year despite the pandemic.

BC PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
If schools play such a critical role in communities, why are BC students the lowest funded in western Canada, at almost $2,000 below the Canadian average?

Why is it that 10 years after the Adopt-A-School charity was started in response to teacher Carrie Gelson publishing an open letter begging for help to support her starving and cold students, it continues to fill the need to feed students? Why do schools still have to fundraise to support food programs in schools? If feeding starving children was a priority of your government, why not fund food programs in schools? Why do school districts have charity status so that they can collect donations as the Surrey School district does?

If the social and emotional well-being of students across the province was a priority, there wouldn’t be overcrowded classrooms and a scarcity of supports for students who struggle with learning. Elementary schools wouldn’t only have a counsellor one day a week. A student who has difficulty learning shouldn’t have to share the support of one education assistant with 5 other struggling students in their class.

Keeping schools open during the pandemic came at enormous cost to the mental well-being of K-12 staff as is evident from research conducted by the BCTF and by the Canadian Federation of Teachers and by UBC Early Learning Partnerships.

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Vaccines are the most effective way to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in schools and communities. The vaccines used in British Columbia remain highly effective against COVID-19, including among variants of concern. Two doses of vaccine are available for everyone 12 and older and everyone who is eligible is strongly encouraged to get fully vaccinated. While COVID-19 is present in our communities, there will continue to be COVID-19 exposures in schools involving students and staff. However, the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) reports that, with the increasing proportion of people 12 and over being fully vaccinated and effective communicable disease measures continuing to be in place, exposures are unlikely to lead to further transmission.

B.C. TEACHERS AND PARENTS SAY
One third of B.C. students who are eligible for vaccines are still not vaccinated. There are no vaccines for K-6 students. There is no mask mandate for K-3 students. Students under 12 have to rely on the moral integrity of the adults around them. Their access to fresh air is dependent on whether their school district has the funding to fully upgrade ventilation systems. The fact is that B.C. public schools have indoor spaces with the highest concentration of unvaccinated people in B.C.

Internationally renowned experts have criticized BC Public Health’s plan for schools and there have been local calls for the BC CDC to provide the science that backs their plan for schools. Teachers continue to wait for the facts that support the refusal to mandate masks for K-3 students.

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
To keep students and staff safe, the Ministry of Education will continue to follow the direction of Dr. Bonnie Henry and the Provincial Health Office (PHO). The provincial K-12 Education Steering Committee, comprised of educators, parents, support workers, school leaders, Indigenous rightsholders, and public health experts worked with the Ministry and the BCCDC over the summer to review and update the Provincial COVID-19 Communicable Disease Guidelines for K-12 Settings. All boards of education and independent school authorities will continue to follow these guidelines.

B.C. PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
Based on characteristics of the school plan, the main focus seems to be ensuring parents continue to go to work while their children are at unsafe schools in order to keep the economy going. Questionable regard for the welfare of students in a recent healthcare workers’ webinar led to widespread outrage.

And, can you explain why a Public Health Officer would use parent anxiety as the reason for changes to school notifications? Currently, frantic parents are using social media to find out if there have been positive cases in their child’s school and are angry that they have to do so. Why is it that two moms provide more information about positive cases in BC schools than your Ministry does?

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Although PHO guidance no longer recommends the use of learning groups/cohorts in the K-12 setting, schools will continue to employ measures to help create space between people, as well as implement daily cleaning and disinfecting protocols and ensure that ventilation systems are operated and maintained in accordance with provincial standards. Parents/caregivers, students, staff and other adults are required to complete daily health checks, stay home when feeling sick and practice diligent hygiene. All K-12 staff, students in Grades 4 to 12, and visitors are required to wear a mask indoors in schools and on school buses. Students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 are encouraged to wear a mask. School gatherings and events (including inter-school events) can occur in line with those permitted as per relevant local, regional, provincial, and federal public health recommendations and Orders. Public health teams and school health officers will also continue to monitor COVID-19 cases in schools and the community and will continue to provide support and guidance to schools.

B.C. PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
There is no ability to distance in overcrowded schools. None. Daily cleaning has been reduced to pre-pandemic levels. Despite your Ministry ordering schools to install MERV 13 filters, most schools still do not have this done and those who have upgraded their filters have replaced MERV 8 with MERV 11 filters which are inadequate for the task of filtering virus-laden air. Too many schools have outdated ventilation systems that should be replaced and would have been if the health of students in public schools in B.C. truly was a priority of your government.

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Our government remains committed to providing stable funding to support students, schools and districts during this recovery from the pandemic. As announced on June 17, 2021, the Province is providing $43.6 million to support ongoing health and safety measures, First Nations and Métis students, mental health services, rapid response teams, and to address learning impacts to students. Of the $43.6 million, $25.6 million in new one-time funding will be used for:

Health and safety, including Rapid Response Teams, cleaning and supplies ($14.4 million);
Support for First Nations students and building capacity within First Nations Education Steering Committee and Métis Nation BC ($5 million);
Mental health services ($5 million); and
Independent schools ($1.2 million).

B.C. PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
$43.6 million divided by 563,000 students means $77 per student
$14.4 million divided by 1578 schools means $9,125 per school. How much can that buy in schools with over 2000 students?
$5 million for mental health services means $8 per student. Elementary schools have a counsellor one day per week.

MINISTER WHITESIDE SAID
Rapid Response Teams, which have been in place since February 2021 in each of the five health authority regions, continue to operate this school year. The teams will focus on reviewing school communicable disease plans, conducting safety assessments and supporting communications to students, staff and families regarding communicable disease prevention. They will also help schools and school districts to implement pandemic recovery plans including a focus on addressing impacts on learning and supporting student and staff mental health.

BC PARENTS AND TEACHERS SAY
If the “communication” and “guidance” is based on the outdated science about droplets that ignores the airborne transmission of the delta variant, Rapid Response Teams are merely performing public relations spin. COVID-19 is not in the same category as communicable diseases like measles, mumps or pink eye and trying to assuage parents’ and teachers’ concerns with that prevarication is eroding trust in our public health system.

We are appalled at the government’s current response to this pandemic and are frustrated that our concerns are continually dismissed by the Ministry of Education as is the case with this response from Minister Whiteside.

I taught in South Africa during the Apartheid-era, in underfunded schools for ‘coloured’ people, with crowded classrooms and very few resources.

I never felt as dispirited, distressed, and disrespected as I do now, teaching in British Columbia under John Horgan’s government.

In South Africa, I had hope for a better tomorrow. I knew that democracy had to come one day and that I was on the right side of history in the fight for it.

For years I hoped that B.C. would elect a progressive, NDP government so that we could rehabilitate the deteriorating situations in schools. During the 2014 strike, while walking the picket line, and during endless hours in advocacy meetings and online, the dream of the BC NDP forming government kept me going.

In the 2017 election, I went all in during the election campaign, canvassing and contributing in many ways. I was thrilled when they won.

But, right from the start, when Fleming refused to hire more teachers while hundreds of students were without a classroom teacher for months, the signs were there that my hopes would be dashed.

I’ve written a few times about the many disappointments and don’t want to repeat them here. Frankly, I’m so tired of talking about the multiple betrayals, and about my shock at what turncoats the BC NDP turned out to be.

Now I just want to curl into a fetal position and hide.

There’ve been about 30 exposure letters in my school. Multiple classes have been ‘monitoring’ or ‘isolating’. Colleagues have had the virus.

And now there’s a new variant that is highly transmissible and potentially more dangerous and our Public Health Office has done nothing to increase the meagre protection measures in place. There’s been an increase in the number of cases of the new variants, and that they don’t know how they’re spreading.

I keep buying new kinds of masks that promise more protection. It feels futile.

I keep checking my “In case of Death” folder to ensure that all the information is clear for my daughter.

In South Africa we had no union to protect our rights as workers. There was no Workers’ Compensation Board for us.

But, even though now I am one of 44,000 teachers in a union, I feel helpless and powerless and at the mercy of a public health officer who denied for months that wearing masks was effective protection against being infected.

In the Rachel Maddow interview of Dr Fauci on Friday, 22nd January, it became glaringly obvious how out of alignment with the renowned epidemiologist the BC CDC is.

Dr. Fauci is an advocate of mass testing of asymptomatic people.
Dr. Bonnie Henry continues to resist that idea.

Fauci created a video to promote mask wearing everywhere. Because of Henry’s views on masks, not backed by any scientific research at all, teachers struggle to explain to students why they don’t have to wear a mask in a classroom, an indoor public place.

New research suggests that talking can spread the virus just as effectively as coughing does. Talking is what I do all day in the classroom and I encourage my students to talk to me, to each other. It’s what is done in a 21st century classroom. But the BC CDC K-12 guidelines are more suitable for a Dickensian classroom where students sit, unmasked, silently like statues, facing forward.

I’m constantly worrying that my ethical obligation to act as a prudent parent in the classroom is being handicapped by people who have no clue about how schools work today.

I am so done.

I resonate with the nurses who recently said that those of them who don’t die are going to quit.

Yes, that’s where I am, while teaching in one of the richest provinces in one of the richest countries in the world, under a democratically elected government formed by a political party that spent 16 years in Opposition promising better days for teachers.

What a colossal lie.

Teachers Jen Heighton and Susan Chung joined me in creating the following verses to express how we’re feeling today on the eve of our return to school.

‘Twas the day before school start
And students through BC
Are readying themselves for Covid 19

There is a new variant,
The one that moves fast,
From child to child
In their BCEd class.

It’s evolved a new spike
And moves so quickly though schools
That the WHO even gave us
More school safety rules

Why won’t the BCCDC evolve with the virus?
Give students masks and distance
In class to protect us?

‘Twas the day before school start
And all through BC
Our teachers are begging
For much better safety!

Will Dr Bonnie Henry
Hear all of our cries?
We want to stay healthy,
We don’t want to die!

‘Twas the day before school start
And all through BC
Teachers were prepping and marking
While suppressing high anxiety.

What of this new variant,
The one that moves fast,
From maskless child to maskless child
In each overcrowded class?

Why won’t BC’s PHO
Take heed of the advice
That UK scientists are sharing
So others don’t pay the price?:

“UK hospitals are crowded
You don’t have time to waste
The variant spreads fast
So put better safety measures in place.

“Our schools had B.C-like policies
But that allowed the spread
Through children then households
We wish we’d thought ahead

“So politicians around the world,
You’d better not wait
Until your hospitals are full,
By then it is too late.

“This virus mutates when it wants,
And yes, a vaccine is on the way,
But UK, South Africa, Nigeria
Show mutant strains are here to stay

“So learn from our mistakes,
Be prudent and smart,
To keep schools open longer
Break the chains at the start.”

BC teachers paid attention;
Knew their classrooms were packed,
Thought, “What do we do with this info;
How should BC react?”

Mandate masks, allow for distance
Hybrid learning can be done
Open windows, clean the air,
Safety should be number one.

‘Twas the day before school start
And all through BC
Teachers were fretful and frightened,
Demanding more workplace safety.

Images by Julia Macrae:  @Julia_MacRae