The Greater Victoria School Board could face repercussions, including dismissal, if it fails to come up with a revised safety plan by Jan. 6, Education Minister Lisa Beare said Friday.
The board submitted a safety plan to the ministry at its request this fall amid controversy surrounding a May 2023 decision to scrap the district’s school police liaison officer program.
Citing a recommendation from human rights commissioner Kasari Govender, the board has said that having police in schools could harm students who are Black or Indigenous.
Liaison officers hadn’t been in schools in the Victoria police jurisdiction since 2018 due to police budget issues, but Victoria Police Chief Del Manak said Friday he has officers “ready to be deployed.”
“I would welcome the opportunity to come into schools and to start engaging with students and teachers at the earliest opportunity,” Manak said.
The board’s 2023 decision generated backlash, including from police worried about gang recruitment at district high schools. Local governments, First Nations and others have also called for the decision to be reconsidered.
In response, then education minister Rachna Singh issued an order calling for collaboration between the board and area police departments in developing the safety plan, with a progress report required by Oct. 1, followed by a finalized plan on Nov. 15.
The order said the plan should address such concerns as increased gang activity, crime prevention and crisis response, and called for a commitment from the board to improve its relationship with police.
The board submitted its safety plan last month, but Beare said after consultation with the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, area police chiefs, the president of the Victoria Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils and the board itself, she concluded the plan needs to be improved.
Beare said former Abbotsford School District superintendent Kevin Godden has been appointed as a special adviser to help the board in revising its safety plan. A working group will be convened with the board, safety experts, police and key community partners, the province said. Godden’s $55,000 contract will be paid by the board, Beare said.
The Greater Victoria School District is the only one of the province’s 60 school districts that doesn’t have some sort of program for its dealings with police, Beare said.
In a recent letter to Beare, the chiefs of the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations said they had “grave concerns regarding governance missteps and lack of meaningful consultation surrounding the discontinuation of the SPLO program.” Esquimalt Chief Jerome Thomas and Songhees Chief Ron Sam wrote that the decision resulted in the removal of an RCMP Indigenous policing unit officer who spent 10 years building meaningful relationships.
The nations had wanted the Indigenous unit officer allowed back into schools while the safety plan was devised, but that didn’t happen.
Manak said Friday that he is “extremely pleased” with Beare’s announcement, noting he has been disappointed with the school board’s lack of collaboration. He said he never received a response to a draft plan for liaison officers he presented to the board on July 31. “I’m pleased to see that we’re soon going to be sitting down to come up with a plan.”
People on both sides of the liaison-officer issue “are closer than many people think we are” to a solution, Manak said. “We just need partners that are willing to talk, put student safety first and I think we can get to the outcome that the minister’s looking for.”
Manak said the tight timeline given to the board “speaks to the urgency of the issue that we are seeing in many of our schools.”
He said that there are schools where certain washrooms or other areas are considered unsafe by students, noting a homemade edged weapon and vaping products laced with THC — the active ingredient in marijuana — were recently found at a city elementary school.
“We’re learning about it after the fact, and the school is struggling around when police should be called and when they shouldn’t be called.”
The key goal of having police in schools is to build connections “to prevent the rise of concerning behaviour,” Manak said. “Police officers in schools can be a resource for educators, they can be a deterrent to gang-recruitment activity.”
Beare said the “best approach to safety is a collaborative one,” citing an independent review of the district’s safety plan by Safer Schools Together, a team of school-safety experts with the province.
Founder and chief executive Theresa Campbell said while the district’s plan provides some support for high-risk vulnerable youth and staff training, “proactive safety plans must include strong relationships and collaboration with law enforcement, First Nations and other community partners.”
Campbell said the plan needs more specifics on safety strategies, protocols and processes.
West Vancouver-Capilano MLA Lynne Block, the Conservative education critic, and Surrey Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, the Conservative public safety critic, said in a joint statement that appointing a special adviser was a necessary step “but one that has come far too late.”
They said students and families raised “urgent concerns” about safety in the Greater Victoria School District after the cancellation of the liaison-officer program.
A statement from the province noted that the School Act enables the minister of education and child care to appoint special advisers to help a board of education “in the conduct of the affairs of the school district in respect of any educational, financial or community matters.”
The board and its employees must assist the special adviser in carrying out their duties, it said.
The Greater Victoria School District issued a statement Friday saying it will report back in early January as required by the ministerial order, although it said it will need the participation of a working group that will have to work over the holiday season.
It said it looks forward to the opportunity to work with the special adviser to “review and reconsider” the safety plan.
The Saanich and Sooke school districts continue to have police liaison officers in schools.
