Vancouver students call for better representation at district meetings

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A few dozen Vancouver high-schoolers took some time out of their fast-disappearing summer break today to call for a greater voice in how their educations are run.

A rally, organized by the BC Student Alliance and held outside Vancouver Public Library Central Branch, focused specifically on student trustees: members of the student body who represent their classmates’ interests at district meetings.

“Students right now feel marginalized by a lack of voice within our educational system,” says rally organizer Dakota McGovern. “Legislatively speaking, we have no initiative to make changes within our local communities, and I think that’s a problem.”

Of the 60 school districts in the province, only the Vancouver and Sunshine Coast districts have student trustees. Those representatives can participate in high-level discussions, but cannot legally cast votes.

“We need to see a major reform movement that will give students actual legislative accountability because that doesn’t exist anywhere in BC, and we have seen other models do that, and it works,” McGovern adds.

Vancouver district board chair Mike Lombardi describes the input of student trustees as “invaluable”. In 2013, his district became the first in Western Canada to adopt the practice.

He says the BC School Trustees Association passed a policy at one of their annual general meetings urging the province to pass legislation on the issue, but nothing has come of it.

“To me, I don’t think the provincial government has as a priority the student voice, and we believe the student voice is critical to help us inform and develop our policies,” Lombardi says.

The Ministry of Education issued the following statement when contacted by NEWS 1130: “It is up to locally-elected school board trustees to decide if they want to have a student representative or trustee on their board.”

Student trustees are a part of every school district in Ontario.