Welcome back!

As I noted in my last blog post, I’ve been assigned to the Dover zone this year. I greatly enjoyed my time in the John Barsby zone.  As I move into my new assignment, there is one thing I want to clear up.

There is a perception that the Board didn’t question the move of VAST to John Barsby because they don’t care about these students.  I can guarantee you that every member of our board, whatever our differences, believes, when they vote on a matter in front of us, is looking at the issue through the lens of what they see as the best way to serve kids, in the short term & the long term. Many of us did raise a lot of questions regarding the move; we didn’t just give it a rubber stamp. And to the credit of staff, when we discussed the issue of the VAST move, they worked very hard to address all the concerns. I know that first hand, because I was part of the transition meetings. I have had many conversations with the staff who work directly with these students. They are passionate about supporting them and we are lucky to have them.

Second, there appears to be some confusion around the issue of the fact that the students in VAST/CTC have a separate entrance they can use. This decision wasn’t made to stigmatize the students. Learning Alternatives (which is what the overall program is called) is a school within a school. They want to feel like their own entity, and part of respecting that desire is to give them their own entryway. That is very important to the students and the program staff, who work very hard to support them. The planning for the physical layout of the new classrooms – including the choice of location – was made with full input & approval from the program principal & discussed in depth at the transition committee meeting.

As always, if anyone has further questions about this matter or any other issue, please feel free to contact me!

Well, my part of the graduation festivities for our grade twelve students, small as it is, has been completed. This afternoon I was part of the platform party for the John Barsby Community School Class of 2017. The ceremony was absolutely lovely. There was a fantastic slide show, two beautiful musical performances, and a poignant, yet funny valedictory address.

As always, I will share with you what I wrote for the graduates. Special thanks to my mom and to  Robyn Gray, who is part of our senior District administration,  for their assistance in determining how to modify the poem I used at the end.

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Good afternoon staff, parents, family, friends distinguished guests, most importantly, the graduating class of 2017. It is my profound honour to bring you greetings on behalf of the Board of Trustees of School District 68.  

First of all, I want to say how incredibly proud I am of each and every one of you. I consider it the greatest privilege of my role as a Trustee to be able to be here and share this day with you. Although I work hard to have a unique message every year, there are two things I have to say that I will repeat until someone tells me I can’t anymore. One – as much as you may feel like you want to hurry through today’s proceedings, try not to do that. Savor this moment. You’ve earned it. And consider yourself lucky you didn’t have 800+ kids in your grad class. Two – as hard as you worked to get here, to become the person you are today – you didn’t do it all by yourself. Many adults: Family, friends, teachers, coaches, neighbours, and others – have supported & encouraged you along the way. Take even just a few moments to find one or two and thank them for their efforts. It matters.

High school, in my opinion, can best be summarized by the immortal words of Charles Dickens, at the start of A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I can’t begin to imagine the wealth of memories that you are taking with you, both bitter and sweet.   

You may think that because you are only one person, that what you do doesn’t make a difference. But it does. There’s a story I first heard years ago about a man who sees a boy throwing things into the ocean. The man approached the child and asked what he was doing and the boy explains he’s tossing starfish back into the ocean, because the tide was going out and he didn’t want them to die. The man laughed & pointed out that there were too many for him to make a difference. The boy listened politely, picked up another starfish and as he did so, he stated: “I made a difference for that one”

As I’ve pondered, over the past few months, what I wanted to say to you today, I’ve thought about many things. I must return to Dickens for a moment: He continued, after that famous first line, to note that, “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us:”

That was written in 1859, and yet it’s just as true today. For every challenge you face, you will also be faced with an opportunity.*

As hard as it is to stay positive and hopeful, try to remember that there is no light without dark.It is the bad times in life that will help you appreciate the good times, and the good times which will give you the strength and resilience to get through the bad times.

A few of the young men graduating today played floor hockey with me back when you were in elementary school, and maybe even in grade 8.  I said to you back then that when you remembered your time with us, you wouldn’t remember who scored that sweet goal, or the final score of any of the games. You’d remember the fun and the camaraderie and the sense of being part of a team. Life is a lot like floor hockey, gang. It’s a team sport. And as important as it is for you to contribute your skills and your talents, what’s even more important is who you are. It’s how you treat people. Be the change you wish to see in the world. One way to do that is to strive to live out, every day, the virtues that some call the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,  self-control, and, most importantly, kindness.  I will end here with a slightly altered version of a poem by The Abbey of Gethsemani.

Of all the virtues open to all of us the

Most effective, the most far-reaching, the most

Consoling is Kindness.

Kindness is one of the greatest gifts to the world.

It drives gloom and darkness from souls.

It puts hope into fainting hearts.

It sweetens sorrow. It lessens pain.

It discovers unsuspected beauties

Of human character.

It calls for a response from all that is best in souls.

It purifies, glorifies, ennobles, all that it touches

It opens the floodgates of children’s laughter.

It gathers the tears of repentant love.

It lightens the burden of weariness.

It stops the torment of angry passion.

It takes the sting from failure.

It kindles courageous ambition.

It lifts the unfortunate.

It leads back the wayward.

Let us all become advocates of kindness to partake

Of its sweetness, to aspire to its magnificence

The virtue of kindness is exalted;

It is sublime;

It is worthy  of each of us

Congratulations, again to all of you. I wish you every blessing as you embark on the next phase in your life’s journey.

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If you’re wondering about the part in bold & italics, with the asterisk beside it – that would be the part I decided I needed to add this morning, because something still didn’t ‘feel right’ in the original version. Of course, I wrote that part out by hand because I didn’t have time to get it printed again. And then I stumbled a bit over my words because, well… nobody will ever give me awards for my penmanship. Of course, I’m the person who noticed that stumble the most, and I beat myself up over it on the drive home.

The universe’s way of helping me find the theme for next year’s speech?

I think so.

It’s officially the end of the school year. Tomorrow I’ll be at the Port Theatre, watching the John Barsby graduating class of 2017 as they a take the stage. As always, it will be a great honour to be able to address the students. I am happy to say that I finished writing & proofreading my speech on Sunday night, which is a record for me. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and sometimes – many times – that manifests itself through procrastination. In February I took part 1 of spritual growth program & identified that bad habit of mine, and in part two, which I am currently participating in, I began really tackling the issue.

So that said… despite the fact that the speech is written, I don’t think it’s right to share it with my blog readers until the students themselves have heard it. I will, however, share the speech I gave to the Dover graduates in 2016, which I forgot to post last June.  I was  (maybe still am?) a little self-conscious about the fact that I used the Jack Layton quote again, because I work really hard to find different ones each year. But for some reason, that particular one just felt right, again.

Spoiler alert: I did NOT use it in this year’s speech.

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Good afternoon staff, parents, family, friends distinguished guests, most importantly, the graduating class of 2016. It is a privilege to bring you greetings on behalf of the Board of Trustees of School District 68. Of all the many tasks I’m asked to perform in my role, it’s events such as today that bring me the most joy. And today that joy is mixed with a profound sense of pride, because I have known a number of you for so long, and in fact, I’m related to one of you. The kids who know me likely remember that I’m slightly obsessed with pictures & scrapbooking. I have a lot of memories of many of you, from track meets and ball games to assemblies and holiday parties; so many that at one point I considered that a slide show to accompany these words might be fun. But my hope is that you’ll all still be speaking to me by the time this day is over, so in the end I reconsidered that approach. That said, I’ve been waiting almost 18 years for this day, and I’m I wee bit sentimental at the best of times….  

But seriously… as I prepared for this day, 3 things came to mind

The first is that memories matter. So I ask you today to do something that’s a little bit contrary to the messages our society gives us. Stay in the moment today. Today really is the first day of the rest of your life. Don’t think about what you’re going to do tonight, or the long weekend. Stay in this moment, and truly reflect on all you’ve accomplished. As Robert Fulghum once wrote, “Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn’t count it. Nothing counts without it.”

The second is that although I am absolutely sure each of you worked as hard as you could to get to this day, you didn’t get here alone. As someone once said, No man is an island. Each of you has had at least one person – if you’re lucky, maybe more than one – who has encouraged you, supported you, invested time & effort into you… And in a society that often puts a lot of emphasis on individualism, it’s easy to take that for granted. So my final assignment to you? Don’t do that.  Take the time, over the next few days, to thank those people, be it parents, other family members, former teachers, secretaries, coaches…all of those interactions played an integral part of making you the person you are today, and they’re part of the foundation that will help as you take your next steps into the adult world.

And that leads me to my final point. I remember my own graduation, feeling a tremendous pressure as all these speakers blathered on about how we should change the world. How could I live up to that? And as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized something – it isn’t about the career you choose. The legacy you will leave, when it’s all said and done, is not in what you do, or what you have, but in who you ARE. We are meant to be more than what we do – there’s a reason we’re referred to as human BEINGS, not human DOINGS. In the words of the late Jack Layton, Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So be hopeful, loving and optimistic. And you will change the world.

Thank you

I realize I have been again neglecting is blog. I haven’t deliberately stopped blogging. As the term has progressed, however, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to use this vehicle to communicate with people.

All the open school board committee of the whole meetings and monthly board meetings are now available online. The main Youtube page for the school district is here. Near the top right hand corner is a subscribe button. You can also click on the ‘playlists’ tab, which is across the top.  After doing so, you’ll see one called “Board Meetings.” which has links to all the meetings, going back to August 2016, which, I think, is when we began recording them.

One of the things that I know I’ve worked on, as a new trustee, is finding the appropriate balance between how & when to express my personal views, vs simply clarifying what the majority decided. I know this topic is one we, as group, have discussed at length. The conclusion I’ve come to is that I can certainly clarify anything I’ve said which is a matter of public record; it’s not, however, appropriate to say things that attack or undermine my peers, even if I disagree with them… and I have a responsibility to respect decisions made by the majority even if I don’t agree with the final result.

To end on a lighter, more fun note: It was my great honour to attend the Grade 7 festivities at Park Avenue school this evening. We had an amazing potluck dinner, followed by presentations of certificates & a photo to the outgoing students. I know some wonder about referring to the end of grade 7 as a ‘graduation,’ and I do understand that feeling. That said, I think it’s also really important to mark transitions. So I felt very privileged to be part of the formal presentations this evening. It was made even more special for me because one of the boys who is heading to high school next year is the son of a friend. I remember holding him when he was a baby, so it was a very proud moment for me to give him his certificate. Thanks to Mr Dhillon & Mr. Snowden for organizing and MCing these festivities!

I apologize, all, for taking a ‘writing sabbatical’ over the summer. Since we got back in September, my focus has been studying up on the proposed school closures so that I can when it’s time to vote, I can make an informed choice.  As always, I welcome your feedback & questions. I want to know how YOU feel about the direction we are considering. I want to answer any questions you have about the budget, the thinking behind proposed ideas, or any matters that concern you as parents, grandparents, and/or citizens in general.

Please note that there is a consultation meeting tomorrow at NDSS to discuss district programs, including, but not limited to, Learn at Home and French Immersion

You can send any feedback to consultation@sd68.bc.ca

There is also an online survey available here: survey

This page also has links to the backgrounder/rationale for the proposed closures, links to Ministry guidelines on the process and other materials. Should you require any assistance in navigation through the material, please feel free to contact me.

Note that the Board will be having a night for the public to present their thoughts & ideas on the subject of these proposed closures on November 4th, 2015. The deadline to request a spot on the speaker’s list is October 30, 2015, at 4pm.

Other dates to note:

Sunday, November 15, 2015
60-day consultation concludes

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 – 6 p.m.
Special Business Committee meeting – Feedback presented to the Board
Shaw Auditorium, Vancouver Island Conference Centre

Tuesday, November 24, 2015 – 6 p.m.
Special Business Committee meeting – Board receives report from district staff
Shaw Auditorium, Vancouver Island Conference Centre

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 – 6 p.m.
Special Board meeting – Discussion on school consultations
Boardroom – 395 Wakesiah Avenue

Wednesday, December 9, 2015 – 6 p.m.
Special Board meeting – Discussion on school consultations
Boardroom – 395 Wakesiah Avenue

Well, since I haven’t posted with the regularity that I had hoped to this term, I figured I would try to make up for it with a second post in one day. 😉

The last week has been a whirlwind of graduation prep. Last Friday afternoon, I was at the Vancouver Island University graduation. I attended on behalf of the Trustees because my zone high school is NDSS, which is where the Career and Technical Centre is located. That program is a partnership between the school district & the university.

Today was the NDSS graduation. It was an amazing experience to be up there on the stage and part of the group presenting their diplomas to the students. They’re a very diverse group. I was incredibly moved to see the grads from the Ravens LeLum program taking the stage with their children. I loved all the different performances.I’ll definitely miss Tasha’s ukulele skills. And she’s a songwriter. As much as I would’ve loved to have her lead us in another rousing ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ singalong, I’ll forgive it, because hearing an original song she wrote for the occasion? Amazing. A memory I’ll cherish.

Here is what I shared with the grads when I spoke… or at least what I wrote; I may have ad libbed a bit on stage:

Good morning staff, parents, family, friends distiguished guests, most importantly, the graduating class of 2015. It is a privilege to bring you greetings on behalf of the Board of Trustees of School District 68.

 I have thought a lot about my own high school graduation, some 27 years ago, as I prepared to speak to you today. High school was, for me, as I imagine it was for many of you, the best of time and the worst of times. I encourage you to hold on to the good memories as you move on today, and let go of the bad ones. 

I have spent weeks trying to sort out what to say to each of you. You have wore worked hard to achieve this goal; today is a momentous occasion, the enormity of which you may not even fully grasp today. I certainly didn’t, at the time.  I’ve pondered, prayed, reflected and researched. And then, this past Saturday I was in Vancouver at the Lion King and as I listened to the song Circle of Life, I realized that two verses from it captured it all:

Some of us fall by the wayside

Some of soar to the stars

Some of us sail through our troubles 

Some have to live with the scars

Some say eat or be eaten

Some say live and let live

All are agreed, as we join the stampede

You should never take more than you give

As Jack Layton said before he died, Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So be hopeful, loving and optimistic. And you will change the world.

Writer’s note: In the spirit of the assignment I gave today’s grads, thank you Mike, who is interning at our church, without whom I’d have been stuck trying to read this speech off an i-Pad that was on 18% power, because I spent so much time writing & rewriting this speech that I didn’t get it printed until this morning.

Thank you also to my Grade 12 English teacher, Carol McNamee, who took me aside in English 12 & encouraged me to accept the idea that really, when you’re writing an essay, you should only have one main idea per paragraph. 😉

Before I talk about graduation, just a few houskeeping notes:

1)I’d like to acknowledge and officially welcome John Blain as our Superintendent, if I haven’t already done so. John had been in this role in an acting capacity since the departure of his predecessor. I’d also like to welcome Graham Roberts as our Secretary Treasurer. Like Mr. Blain, he stepped into his role in an acting capacity and we have determined that it was time to put him in the position permanently.

2) As you know, the budget passed. I did vote against the budget, because I didn’t see the needs for cuts given the fact that we currently have a surplus. As I said at the table, my experience with government is that if you hold on to money, they will find ways to use it against you. I genuinely believe our public education system is underfunded, and we need to be advocating to restore programs, services, and positions that have been lost due to the budget cuts of the past many years. And that isn’t even taking into account the gross injustice of removing needed supports from our classrooms due to the illegal stripping of teachers’ contracts. As we heard at the budget table, those actions have cost our District $7 millions – just this year. We are still waiting for the final word from our auditor as to the exact amount of our surplus, and a motion has passed to revisit the use of that money once we know the amount. We also agreed to have a ensure we have a finale report from our Secretary Treasurer as to the state of our exact state (as close as possible) of our current finances prior to voting on the budget.

3) I was my great privilege to attend 3 retirement functions this past week. We had the Board/District sponsored event on Thursday June 18. Then on Friday, June 19, and and Sunday June 21, the NDTA and CUPE each held events, and I had the opportunity to bring greetings from our Board. As I said out both of those events, the people who work in our schools are the cornerstone of a healthy public education system.

4)Last – I want to clarify any confusion around the subject of proposed school closures. Yes, Mr. Blain did present a report suggesting the closure of 4 schools: Rutherford Elementary, Departure Bay Elementary, North Cedar Elementary and Woodlands Secondary. The perception is out there that final decisions have been made and these schools will all definitely close. That is in no way the case. The board has not agreed to go into closure consultations. We still have too many questions and concerns about the proposed plan. We are open to questions and feedback! If – and again, I’m saying if – we do deem it necessary to go into the 60 day consultation process for any of the schools, that still doesn’t mean that it is a foregone conclusion that those schools would close. We are open to ideas and input!

This post has gotten long – just over 500 words – so I will close here. I have learned a lot in my beginning months on the Board. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of keeping this blog regularly up to date, and I will work on improving in this area. Please know you can email me with questions, ideas for topics and the like at tania.brzovic@sd68.bc.ca

Good morning!
March has been a blur. We got a tonne of input from the Your Voice process and the results are being presented tonight at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. The core document is 500 pages, so trustees have had it since late last week. We received it early so that we could try to read through it and form questions for tonight’s presentation from management. All the information will be available online for those who can’t make the public meeting. That meeting takes place tonight at the Shaw Auditorium at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.

We have begun the budget process. For the last two Tuesdays, we have had special Business Committee meetings at 4:30 pm to being reviewing our costs. We have also been looking at comparisons between our district and similar sized districts. I know there has been some frustration and disappointment voiced that these meetings are taking place over what is the dinner hour, as opposed to our more usual 6pm time. I brought the issue up again yesterday and the consensus was that at this point we couldn’t go back and change the times. I know that at the end of the budget process I’ll be looking for us to evaluate our practices and come up with strategies to improve upon it next year. Please send us your input so we can consider it as we do this work. One thing we confirmed at yesterday’s meetings is that all budget documents and presentations from these meetings will be available on our website.

Also please note that we are currently looking for input on the proposed school calendar for the next 3 years. One thing we are looking at is a two week Spring Break, which is becoming more common throughout the province. You can find the survey on our website. You can also email your thoughts to communications@sd68.bc.ca – I know some people felt they had input they wanted to give that wasn’t quite covered in the survey questions.

First, let me take a moment to apologize for not posting in so long. It has been a very busy time. I’ve been hard at work visiting schools in my zone, reading policies, attending meetings and generally soaking in as much information as possible, so as to be prepared for what I know could be an arduous budget process.

As many of you know, the Board voted to put a hold on all work at Cedar Elementary. We have begun a public input process to help us discern what the broad community sees at its values. That information will guide us as we make decisions regarding where to go with both facility usage and the budget. As we talked, we realized that the two do go together.

We hope that a wide range of people will take part in the process. You do not have to have children attending School District 68 to participate. There is a survey available on the District website – http://www.sd68.bc.ca – that we encourage everyone to complete. I know there has been some concerns about the structure of the questions. Please know that any omissions were not made intentionally. This process is new to us and we have already learned a great deal which will help us both as we go along this year, as well as for future years. Also note that if there are things you want to share that aren’t specifically discussed in the questionnaire, you are encouraged to add your own comments.

On that note:

There are 3 public forums where we will discuss the broad themes of the survey. They all run from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Locations and dates are as follows:

• February 17th (tonight) at Dover Bay Secondary
• February 26th at John Barsby Secondary
• March 5th at Ladysmith Secondary

On March 19th we will be holding a special business meeting at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. Like the forums, the time will be 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

• If you wish to present at this meeting you must submit your request to the Secretary-Treasurer’s Office in writing before Tuesday March 10th (email kelsey.toye@sd68.bc.ca).
  
• Your letter asking to appear should identify the spokesperson for your group, the topic you will be discussing, and the phone number or address where you can be reached.
• Depending on the number of requests for delegations to appear before the Board, there may not be enough spaces for everyone. Spaces will be allotted on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Presentations are limited to 10 minutes.
• Please note that the deadline for all presentation materials (power point, handouts or otherwise) must submitted to Kelsey Toye by Monday, March 16th by 12 PM (noon).

I truly believe this process is one that will benefit our District. I want to thank our staff, especially Dale Burgos, Shauna Debodt and Kelsey Toye, for their work in organizing these meetings.

I swear my next blog update will not take as long to appear as this one did. I’m going away this weekend to attend my first Provincial Council (A BCSTA event). When I get back, I’ll share updates on the Health Centre at John Barsby, SOGI, and other exciting District initiatives.