Point Grey / stəywəte:n PAC

Our Virtual PAC member, Scott Rose, commented on The Flipped Classroom:

"Thanks for bringing this to our attention. There is a whole lot of interest in this approach at the post-secondary level, at least in the US. Part of the thinking is that since a lecture is largely a one-way communication-- particularly in this era of auditorium-sized classrooms-- you lose little and gain much by delivering recorded lectures prepared by the very best lecturers and preserving the local instructor resources for 1:1 interactions. Institutions like Stanford and MIT are putting  Computer Science lectures by their best people up for free. Not sure how much spread there has been to other disciplines."

The Globe and Mail has an article about the "flipped classroom" in today's paper, the first of a 5 part feature on education. Some of you might be interested to read it (here), especially as Point Grey's #1 goal on our school's growth plan is to "leverage the use of technology."

The flipped classroom is a setup where students watch high-quality lectures at home and then do their work with their teacher's help at school. This is the reverse of the current usual setup, where teachers lecture or teach in the classroom and homework is done at home.

It's an arrangement that is becoming increasingly common and apparently has surprisingly good results sometimes, including for inner city classrooms (eg. Detroit).

For me, the main message is that technology is a tool. You can purchase iPads or laptops but just putting them into the school building won't make a difference: you have to think about how to make the technology work for your school community. Sometimes, this involves some creative thinking about how class time is structured.

It was interesting to me to see that individual teachers are flipping their classes just to see what happens. It's not something that the whole school or district has to decide in advance.

Here's the beginning of the article:

This fall, Graham Johnson gave up lecturing to his students. YouTube, he figured, could handle that.

So he had his math classes at Okanagan Mission Secondary School in Kelowna, B.C., watch prerecorded video lessons from home – freeing up school time for one-on-one work.

Turns out pixelated teaching works well: His students’ grades are up about 5 per cent.[...]

Teachers Job Action

At the City-wide PAC meeting in October, our DPAC was asked to write to the Teachers and BC Public School Employers Council to convey concerns on behalf of our PACs.

This is the letter that was sent out.

November 17, 2011

BC Teachers’ Federation

100 - 550 West 6th Avenue

Vancouver, BC, Canada

V5Z 4P2

Attention:  Susan Lambert, President

  AND

BCPSEA

400-1333 West Broadway,

VancouverBC

V6H 4C1

Attention:  Melanie Joy, Chair

Dear Ms Lambert and Ms Joy,

Representatives of the 109 Parent Advisory Councils (PACS) within District #39 requested that theVancouver District Parents Advisory Council (VDPAC) express our growing frustration with the lack of progress in concluding the bargaining between Teachers and their employer.

DPAC acknowledges the professional and focused effort of the leadership within the Vancouver School Board to make plans to support the frontline staff and minimize impacts to our children whenever possible. We admire the personal efforts of some of our children’s teachers and their frontline administrators to minimize the impact to our children. We also have respected and supported the collective bargaining process between the organizations by waiting quietly and patiently for its conclusion.

Nevertheless the above efforts can be sustained for only so long and our growing concerns are that as bargaining stretches to three months of the school year, with no foreseeable end near, we are starting to see signs that we have reached the capacity to maintain the norm with impacts to our children increasing in number and volume. We are very frustrated with the lack of clear and consistent information on the progress of bargaining which adds to our concerns. Most information we are receiving is reactive and unreliable.

VDPAC represents the clients served by both the VSB and the teacher associations, and we request that the Bargaining teams for both the teachers and the education employers re-focus your bargaining strategy and increase your efforts to conclude your collective bargaining quickly and respectfully. VDPAC further requests that during the remaining bargaining period you improve the frequency and reliability of information to families to aid in reducing our concerns.

We look forward to a speedy conclusion of the present, unacceptable state of affairs.

Respectfully yours,

Colin Redfern (colinred@interchange.ubc.ca) and Jennifer West (jennifer.west@live.ca)

Co-Chairs on behalf of the Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council

Cc       Honourable George Abbott, Minister of Education

            Steve Cardwell, Superintendent, School District 39

            Trustees, School District 39

            Vancouver MLAs

            Hugh Finlayson, CEO, BCCPSEA

            Vancouver DPAC Executive        

            Ann Whiteaker, President, BCCPAC

Three of the candidates for Parks Board commissioner who responded to our concern about ice time for girls' hockey have been elected: Niki Sharma, Constance Barnes and Trevor Loke.

Congratulations to them. I look forward to following up with  them about hockey!

Thank you to Courier reporter Megan Stewart, who wrote about our girls' hockey team trying to get better ice time. This reporter took the time to interview Mori Hamilton (the coach), me, and people at the Parks Board before writing the story. And there's a nice photo of the team included.

http://www.vancourier.com/sports/High+school+girls+hockey+players+feeling+snubbed/5717570/story.html

It starts,

     "In 10 years, the skaters on the Point Grey high school hockey team haven't played more than two games at the nearby Kerrisdale "Cyclone Taylor" Arena where they practice, according to the team's coach.Ice time, always in high demand at Vancouver's eight public rinks, isn't available after school to host games at the Kerrisdale rink.

     "The times from 3 to 8 o'clock are golden times. We're definitely down the hierarchy of users," said Mori Hamilton, a Point Grey teacher and the Greyhounds' hockey coach.

     "The main thing is that I don't want ice time that doesn't exist and for our league I don't want anything that isn't fair. I want to make sure our voices are heard because this group of users is one that if they don't have this hockey, this opportunity, then they don't play."

     [...]

Read the rest online or in the paper that comes to your doorstep.

Maureen,

Thank you for your note.

I appreciate the concerns you've raised and the inequities you have experienced in comparison with other teams at other facilities.

Until I am successful in my campaign, I won't make any false promises that I will correct the situation to your satisfaction.

I will however commit to spend the time to meet with staff at the facilities and learn more about the reasons behind some of these decisions and determine what options might be available. I hope that is acceptable for the time being.

Sincerely,

Casey Crawford

NPA Candidate for Park Board

Dear Maureen,

Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns with us. As a former hockey player, I know the the challenges that young female athletes are exposed to. I share in your frustration and believe that the Vancouver Secondary School Athletics' Association girl’s hockey team should be able to book ice time to build their skills and share in the fun of playing with your team mates.

If elected to City Council, I will work with my colleagues in the Vancouver Park Board and organize a roundtable with members of your team and the administrators of the Kerrisdale Community Centre to work out a solution to this issue. I am willing to assist in any way that I can to help you and your teammates play the sport that you’re passionate about.

Respectfully   Yours, 

  Councillor Ellen Woodsworth

My response:

Thank you very much! That's a very clear and helpful response. Also, a fair one.  (I should clarify that I'm the co-chair of the Parent Advisory Council, and neither a member of the team nor a parent of a hockey player.) 

Best,Maureen

Hello Maureen,

Thank you for your email. You are right, I do believe that the Vancouver Park Board has a vital role of supporting the next generation of athletes. In particular, we need to ensure that there is no unequal treatment between genders. Sports play such an importantrole in youth and community development.

I am a strong believer in reducing barriers for people participating in recreational activities.  The example of the VSSAA Girl's Hockey League shows how systemic barriers can result in unequal treatment of certain groups of people.  I am a strong advocate for equality and supporter of women on every level!

I have been speaking with my Vision Vancouver Colleagues about the best way to change this situation for the VSSAA Girl's Hockey League and women's hockey in general. We must make sure that girls hockey teams are given a fair shot at ice times, anything short of this is unacceptable!

I will be in touch with you again shortly. Thank you so much for your community spirit and for bringing this issues forward on behalf of those girls!

Yours Truly,

Niki Sharma (Vision)

My response:

Hi, Niki

Thank you for your response and your concern. I should clarify, though, that I don't think that there's deliberate discrimination against the girls' hockey team because of gender. There may be accidental discrimination, in that they don't qualify to have their ice time grandfathered because the team hasn't been around long enough.

I think that the issue is more that they aren't regarded as a school team, but as a private user, even though they represent the school and compete ina secondary school league.

Ice time is much scarcer than, say, swimming pool time, so it's much more difficult to get ice time for these girls than it should be. I can't say that they deserve the ice more than other users who currently have it, but I hope that the Parks Board will look at their policy to see whether they could give the team the same priority for booking that they'd give the school.

Thank you!

Maureen

Hi Maureen,  thanks for the clarity. This issue is really one of Park Board policy as you articulate and I think should be addressed ffrom that angle. I still believe that your team is being treated unfairly and I'm shocked that a few Commissioners would suggest that you should contact staff. They need to review their own policy and immediately address it. If its found to be unfair and discriminatory which seems to me like it very well could be and I spoke with former Park Board chair Laura McDiarmid about this and she was equally as perplexed on why you are being treated as a private user.

 I will try to do whatever I can to assist. Thank You Jamie Lee

Jamie Lee Hamilton is a Parks Board candidate responding to my letter about ice time for the girls' hockey team. You can read it below, or click here.

Hi Maureen, as far as I know there has always been a usage problem within the centres in that there is greater  demand compared to available  usage. What it sounds like to me is that other teams may be getting preferential treatment and that is wrong. Seems to me there is some gender inequality at play here. Men's teams seem to get preferential treatment and greater access and to me that is wrong. Could you expand further on why Park board treats the team as a private user since this seems blatantly unfair. I certainly would be very open to grandfathering your team along the same lines which Kits currently enjoys. Thanks for raising this very important issue.  Jamie Lee

(Independent Democratic Electors Association [IDEA] )

My response:

Hi again, Jamie Lee  

It seems to me that the issue might be the extra-curricular status of the team. Somehow, that classifies it as private in the mind of the Parks Board. But that seems like a spurious distinction to me. The Parent Advisory Council (PAC) considers extra-curricular teams to be part of the school when we allocate funding.  The  Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch gives PACs money and specifically encourages us to use it to support extra-curricular after school activities as well as enrichment in the school. 

The thing that puzzles me is that the team (and similar extra-curricular teams run by teachers at the school in competitive leagues) is recognized as part of the school for gaming grant purposes, scholarships, and for use of school premises by the school board. The school board doesn't cover the costs of the program for the team members, but it does provide teacher-coaches and, often, space.  Parents encourage their children to be on these teams specifically because they are part of the school community.

So, I hope that the Parks board will take a second look at how they classify the girls' hockey team. I know that ice time is critically limited. 

Thank you again,Maureen