The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE 
ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2000

                                                  * Denotes member present

 

Clerk:

Craig James

Committee Staff:

Kelly Dunsdon (Committee Researcher)

[ Page 1601 ]

The committee met at 9:08 a.m.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I think we can get started here. First of all, we are here to discuss "Fostering a Safe Learning Environment," the auditor general's report No. 1, 2000-01. We'll turn it over to the auditor general and his staff for their presentation.

W. Strelioff: Thank you very much, Chair, members. Good morning. This examination focuses on the school system. This performance audit was done as part of our office's coverage of government. Spending in the education K-to-12 system, of course, is sizeable -- about $4 billion a year. As such we examined specific issues faced by the education system.

We began planning the audit in early 1999, before the school violence incidents in Colorado or Taber, because our office recognized that a safe learning environment is key for students to be able to learn. During the audit, media coverage of other incidents of school violence confirmed that the whole issue is one of great import.

This was an audit of the school system as a whole. Of necessity we visited school districts and talked to teachers, principals, counsellors, parents and students. I am pleased to report that my staff was also assisted in the audit by the cooperation of the staff in the Ministries of Education, Attorney General, Children and Families, Multiculturalism and Immigration, and the B.C. Children's Commission, the office of the child, youth and family advocate and the office of the ombudsman, as well as various provincial agencies for police, teachers, principals, counsellors, parents and students.

I'd like to introduce two of the people who worked on the audit: Errol Price, who was the senior principal in charge of the audit, and Lynne Ronneseth, who was the senior project leader. Lynne now will walk us through an overview of the findings and conclusions in our report.

[0910]

L. Ronneseth: As Wayne has said, we carried out this audit to assess how well the B.C. public school system is doing when it comes to fostering a safe learning environment. We did the audit to assess how well the B.C. public school system is doing when it comes to fostering a safe learning environment. We had an audit purpose of assessing -- I think I'm repeating myself -- how well we were doing to foster a safe learning environment.

When we use the term "safe learning environment," we mean one in which students behave in a socially responsible manner, are treated with respect and feel secure to engage in learning safe from physical threat, bullying, harassment, intimidation and intolerance. Approximately $4 billion is spent every year on public school education, making it the second-largest budget item after health care. One of the keys to optimizing the value from this spending is the provision of a safe school setting, where students are safe to learn both physically and psychologically, so that they will take full advantage of the opportunity to stay in school and learn.

We recognize that there are many factors outside the control of the school system with respect to attitudes and behaviours needed for a safe learning environment -- for example, community, family, cultural influences and socioeconomic conditions. Nonetheless, the school system does have a key role to play, so we focused on actions being taken in the public school system to promote socially responsible behaviour, to discourage aggression and to deal with disruptive behaviour when it arises. We looked at aggression reduction programs, core curriculum to foster socially responsible behaviour and related resource materials, and teacher in-service training that has been developed and introduced over the last three or four years. We also looked at policy guidelines for dealing with disruptive behaviour and evaluations of the usefulness of all of these efforts.

The B.C. school system consists of the Ministry of Education, school districts, schools and all of the people involved in teaching and learning, as you can see on the slide. That's 600,000 students, 36,000 teachers, over 3,000 school administrators, 60 school districts and 1,800 schools. We also talked to other school staff.

We need to explain that when we use the term "aggression" in our report and as others use it within the school system, we're covering a wide range of problems -- typically verbal, physical and social aggression. By verbal aggression we mean mocking; name-calling; teasing; intimidating; racist, sexist or homophobic taunting; verbal threats; coercion; extortion; or dangerous dares. By physical aggression we mean hitting, pushing, shoving, spitting, kicking, threatening with a weapon, vandalism or stealing. By social or relational aggression we mean spreading rumours or gossip; framing; excluding from interactions or inciting hatred; and racist, sexist or homophobic alienation. We also want to acknowledge that there's a range of frequency in aggressive behaviours, from single incidents to those where the victim is picked on continuously over an extended period of time.

We visited five school districts: Central Okanagan, Greater Victoria, Prince George, Sooke and Surrey. In each of these districts we went to elementary, middle and secondary schools, where we met with principals and vice-principals, teachers, counsellors, students and parents. In these same districts we also interviewed superintendents, district directors of instruction, members of district parent advisory councils, school safety contacts, district councillors and school board trustees.

As well, we surveyed every school district in the province by distributing questionnaires to teachers and school-based administrators. The questionnaires asked them in detail about policies, programs and curriculum being used to foster safe learning and about how the results of these efforts are tracked.

To supplement the information we gathered personally from parents and students, we used the findings of student and parent surveys that were already done by the B.C. Student Voice, which is a provincial body that speaks for students. The Ministry of Education had done some surveys, and the B.C. Safe School Centre and the McCreary Centre, which is a non-profit society concerned with the health of B.C. youth. . . . So we had a lot of information available to us.

[0915]

We concluded that for most students, B.C. schools are generally safe places to spend time and learn. However, in every school there are still incidents of aggressive behaviour that negatively impact the environment and cause some students to feel unsafe.

[ Page 1602 ]

In B.C. the need to address these problems has not gone unnoticed. Over the last few years the Ministry of Education and districts have developed policies and programs designed to address aggression. As well, curriculum for promoting socially responsible behaviour has been made part of the province's core curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12. Early indications suggest that these efforts are worthwhile, although more needs to be done to fully implement the initiatives and to properly assess the extent to which these various strategies are actually working.

Our key findings and recommendations fall into four groups. First, we're looking at the safe learning programs for developing pro-social skills and reducing aggression before it starts. Secondly, we looked at the curriculum support and in-service training for teachers in promoting socially responsible behaviour of students. Thirdly, we looked at the policy guidelines for dealing with disruptive behaviour and for measuring the results of the safe learning initiatives.

We'll now deal with each of these four groups, starting with the safe learning programs. In the past three or four years B.C.'s public school system has developed a number of safe learning programs, such as the B.C. Safe School Centre and effective behaviour support training, both of which have the potential to make significant contributions to improving school environments. However, most educators in the public school system had yet to benefit from their use when we were visiting them and talking to them about it.

The B.C. Safe School Centre, which is funded jointly by the Ministries of Education and Attorney General, was established as a central resource for advising on strategies and for loaning resources to support educators in reducing student aggression and related behaviours. The centre has produced and distributed to every school in the province a safe schools kit, which contains various resources to assist teachers and schools in fostering a safe learning environment. We found that many teachers are not yet aware of what is available to them through the centre, although usage of these resources is increasing. Also, improvements to the centre's existing database and web site are needed to better manage access to these resources.

The other program we looked at is called EBS, effective behaviour support. This program, we found, is based on a similar program developed in Oregon, which encourages a schoolwide approach in which school administrators and staff assess and monitor behaviour problems, teach social skills and model problem-solving behaviour -- basically focusing on positive behaviours.

Training courses have now been provided to teams of teachers and administrators in about 300 schools in B.C. The schools that we talked to and heard from have reported that the training has helped them significantly in reducing aggressive behaviour. At the moment, however, demand for the training is exceeding supply and is not being made available to all interested schools.

In addition to ministry-led initiatives, school districts and schools have their own aggression reduction programs for encouraging students to learn to get along with each other. There are a variety of strategies in use around the province, from ones delivered by teachers and counsellors, such as conflict resolution steps, to those delivered by community groups and police programs on anti-racism or drug-use prevention. As we discuss later on under our last section, "Measuring Results," there is little in the way of hard evidence about the success of these initiatives, but anecdotal evidence we collected suggests that these efforts are working, especially when they're applied on a schoolwide basis. We found that a significantly high proportion of aggressive incidents are occurring on playgrounds at the elementary level and in hallways at the secondary level, and we concluded that more needs to be done to help prevent or at least reduce these incidents.

In the area of safe learning programs, here are our recommendations. We recommended that the Ministry of Education work with the Ministry of Attorney General to improve the database and web site of the Safe School Centre. Also, the ministry should expand access to effective behaviour support training.

For their part, we think the school districts should involve elementary schoolground supervisors in aggression reduction initiatives taking place in schools and better prepare them for their important role, because that's where most of the aggressive incidents are occurring in the elementary schools. We also think school districts should make sure material presented by community groups is part of their anti-aggression programs -- make sure it's integrated with other coursework to assist in making it effective.

Secondly, we looked at curriculum support and in-service training for teachers in promoting socially responsible student behaviour. We found that the ministry has recently introduced suitable curriculum to teach socially responsible behaviour at all grade levels, and they've also made it part of the core requirements. "Personal Planning" is what it's called at the elementary level, and "Career and Personal Planning" at the secondary level.

[0920]

We found that many of the components of the curriculum are directly related to matters that influence student aggression, such as personal development, mental well-being and substance abuse prevention. We found that the intent of the curriculum is generally accepted by teachers. However, there are various views on whether it aims to cover too many learning outcomes and on whether there could be better use made of available resources.

As well, teachers also require more in-service training and resources, such as books and videotapes, to better prepare them to address sensitive topics related to aggression, such as suicide and sexual orientation, and to identify factors underlying aggression and to defuse the potential problems before the problems disrupt the learning environment. We found that these topics are not part of the mandatory pre-service training at teacher training institutions.

Our report shows a number of statistics. Our recommendation under the curriculum was that the ministry needs to reorganize the CAPP grade collection, so that teachers can identify which of the resources that are available cover which of the learning outcomes. We're also calling for a mandatory pre-service for teachers. We've mentioned that it's not mandatory for teachers at training institutions to have courses on how to deal with classroom problems and also on how to deliver the curriculum. We think the ministry should sit down with the colleges and universities and with the College of Teachers and discuss the fact that these courses should be mandatory and try to influence it.

[ Page 1603 ]

We also think that the ministry should identify or develop suitable resources and provide in-service training to better prepare teachers to address these sensitive topics, such as suicide and same-sex orientation, and to identify and adapt teaching strategies to meet needs of students with learning disabilities.

Our third area of interest has to do with policy guidance for dealing with disruptive behaviour. We found that policy guidelines for fostering a safe learning environment have recently been developed by the Ministry of Education and its education partners. The partners are other ministries, like Children and Families, Women's Equality, Attorney General, and all the associations provincially for parents, schools and district staff.

Issues addressed in these policies include how to monitor aggressive behaviour, plan for school safety, respond to critical incidents and reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions, and recognize and report on sexual exploitation. We found these guidelines are suitable for the purposes for which they were designed -- namely, raising awareness of the issues and encouraging those in the school system to take the next step in developing local strategies for applying the guidelines.

Some districts and schools have made this more of a priority than others, however. Of particular concern to us is the lack of detail that has been developed at the school level on how to handle critical incidents such as attacks or threats on students or staff and on how to reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions.

At the school and district level, student codes of conduct have been developed for all schools; however, student adherence to these codes varies significantly. We found that expectations and consequences regarding aggression and related behaviours need to be made clearer to both students and staff. Students need to be encouraged to report their concerns about other students, and as well, school staff need to consistently follow up to make it clear that codes will be enforced. School districts and schools can do more to encourage students and parents to report their concerns about staff interactions with students. At present such reports are not readily forthcoming, because there's a perception shared by students and parents that follow-up is inconsistent or ineffective.

Finally, in our look at policies for dealing with disruptive behaviour, we found that better relationships need to be developed between school staff and the resource workers in the Ministry for Children and Families. There are problems in managing cases where students have been assigned resource workers from the Ministry for Children and Families to assist with family problems or interactions with the justice system. So we think that better sharing of information is needed between school staff and resource workers to increase the likelihood of these students being successful in school.

So here are our recommendations for policy guidelines. We recommend that the Ministry of Education resolve the coordination problems with the Ministry for Children and Families at two levels: firstly, at a senior level, regarding the development and distribution of policy guidelines to schools, and secondly, at a working level, regarding the way information is shared about students who have been assigned caseworkers because of family problems or interactions with the justice system. We think that school districts for their part should take the ministry guidelines and refine them for use at the district level. In particular, we think critical incident plans need to include details of who is responsible for what, when and where if a critical incident should occur. School administrators need more guidance on how to improve the learning environment through positive means in order to reduce the use of out-of-school suspensions.

[0925]

We also think school districts should encourage school staff to clarify and enforce student behaviour expectations that are included in student codes of conduct and to encourage students to come forward with concerns about how school staff are interacting with them. As well, the ministries and school districts should work together to better prepare school administrators to give feedback to teachers.

Our last group of findings and recommendations deals with whether the ministry and school districts know whether these efforts make schools safer. Users of ministry and district initiatives for safe learning reported to us that the efforts are worthwhile based on reductions in student referrals to the principal's office with data on actual student behaviour changes. However, without data it is hard to determine which types of behaviour are impacted and to what degree.

Students surveyed by the McCreary Centre on aggression levels from 1992 to 1998 reported no significant change in behaviours except for drug use, which is on the rise. Educators that we surveyed in late 1999 also reported increases in drug use, but they say they're seeing more physical and verbal abuse, more vandalism and theft, and more signs of suicidal gestures and depression.

Our report showed a number of graphs and statistics on levels of aggression both in B.C. and in the rest of Canada. The one shown up there on the slide gives an overall picture of the levels for verbal and physical abuse for all grades. These were numbers that we got from the McCreary Centre study that was done in 1997-98. What you see up there is the percentage of students who reported they had had any of these things happen three or more times during that school year. So you can see that the verbal abuse is higher than the threats of physical harm or the actual physical attacks. The blue-purple colour is the boys, and the pinkish colour is the girls, so you can see where their problems are. We still think that even though these levels may be typical across Canada, there's still cause for concern. We should be doing something about it.

Under "Measuring Results. . . ." We wanted to say that under the safe learning programs, initial assessments and ongoing anecdotal evidence on effective behaviour support training introduced in 1997 suggests that these efforts are contributing to significant decreases in aggression, but only in those schools where the initiative is being applied schoolwide. Most of these schools, however, do not yet have suitable means for tracking student behaviours -- so there's nothing on actual behaviours; it's all anecdotal -- to show which types of aggression are being influenced and to what degree. As yet, no evaluation has been done of the impact of the training and resources being provided through the other main program, which is the B.C. Safe School Centre. So it's hard to say how effective it's been.

We believe that the ministry, school districts and schools need to do more to track student attitudes as well as their behaviours as they relate to aggression. The ministry generally refers to school system results in terms of student aca-

[ Page 1604 ]

demic performance. Using this measure, B.C. students usually perform at least as well as their Canadian counterparts. The ministry does not, however, focus additional efforts on those districts and schools that are shown to be performing significantly below the provincial average to see whether or not these results are linked at all to aggression or related behaviours.

Generally, schools and districts tend to focus more on recording the number of student suspensions rather than analyzing the reasons for the suspensions or how the changes in the numbers are relating to the efforts that are being made to reduce aggression. As a result, there's no clear provincial picture yet of the extent of student behaviour problems or whether existing strategies are helping to foster a safe learning environment in our schools. It's only through this sort of information that the school system will be in a position to know whether money being spent on aggression reduction is being properly focused on where it will do the most good.

[0930]

Our recommendations in this area are, firstly, that the Ministry of Education should consider examining schools and districts where student academic performance is significantly below provincial averages, so underlying reasons can be identified and possibly addressed. We also think that a provincial database should be developed for monitoring student aggression -- and encourage input from and use by schools and districts so that provincewide efforts can be properly evaluated and, if need be, modified.

In summary, we found that most students generally feel safe, but aggression is present in every school. The school system recognizes the importance of addressing aggression and has introduced a number of safe learning initiatives. However, more needs to be done to fully implement these initiatives and to measure their impacts.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I just had a question about the definitions. You defined the various kinds of aggression. Are those the same definitions that are used by the Ministry of Education or by school districts?

L. Ronneseth: I believe they are.

C. Roch: They're certainly very close. The specific wording may change, but certainly people can digest and appreciate that we're on the same page in terms of definitions.

R. Thorpe (Chair): If we could maybe have the Ministry of Education make their presentation, then we would look forward to members asking questions.

S. Harvey: Good morning, everyone. My name is Shell Harvey. I'm the assistant deputy minister responsible for educational programs. On my right is Rick Connolly, assistant deputy minister for governance, policy and schools finance. Claudia Roch is our main expert on the topic that we're addressing this morning. She's the director of the special programs branch in the Ministry of Education and will be doing the main presentation on the ministry's response to the report. Stewart Ladyman is our superintendent of field liaison and will be able to assist if you have questions around the role of school districts versus the role of the ministry.

Just by way of introduction to the ministry's response to the report, the ministry initiated the safe schools initiative in late 1997. We had six goals for that initiative. They were (1) to raise the awareness of safety concerns in our schools, (2) to better coordinate community efforts through the Safe School Centre, (3) to systematically address existing policy and resource gaps, (4) to provide practical support for schools and school districts as they attempted to ensure that the schools were safe learning environments, and (5) to support schools in the broader community in solidifying practice and promote pro-social skill development and reduce violence.

That was late 1997. The ministry allocated $1 million a year to that initiative, and we're just in the midst of year 3, in terms of the first full year. When the staff of the auditor general approached the ministry to inquire about our interest in doing this audit, we were very keen to take advantage of their offer. We welcomed it, and we saw it as an opportunity to have someone external do an objective assessment of how safe our schools were and to give us valuable feedback on how we needed to change some of the directions we were going in. I must say, we also appreciated the approach that their staff took. We felt we had ample opportunity to contribute our ideas and to comment on the research that they were doing and on the audit. Lynne, for example, came to our Education Advisory Council and laid out her research plan. We had opportunity to comment on the survey instruments and that sort of thing. We appreciated that.

In terms of just generally whether our schools are safe, I think we agree with the findings of the report. Our schools reflect the communities in which they operate. They're generally safe, but unfortunately, the violence that's present in our society sometimes reflects itself in our schools as well. We think that our schools are safer than most places in our society. If we think about shopping malls, the street and community centres -- most schools are safer than those.

[0935]

The other point I'd like to make is that our children spend about 15 percent of their time in school, if you think in terms of the number of hours per day times 180 days per year. They're in school about 15 percent of their year. We're pleased to see that the report endorsed a number of the schoolwide approaches to safety, such as effective behaviour support and Focus on Bullying. We're currently taking each of the recommendations in the report and developing a detailed workplan that we'll begin to implement over the months ahead. Claudia will share a bit of that with you. I think I'll just maybe ask Claudia if she would give you more of the details of the specifics around our planning initiatives.

The one thing I would mention. . . . Lynne made mention of Focus on Bullying. We just found out yesterday that the Ministry of Education is going to be receiving an award from the Canadian Council for Exceptional Children. They give one award a year for a publication that makes the most contribution towards the education of exceptional children, and the "Focus on Bullying" guide is going to be the winner that's announced in a few months in Montreal, I think.

C. Roch: Thank you very much, Shell. I do have a box of resources. As the conversation unfolds, I'll certainly be happy to produce anything and just profile it for you, if that would be helpful.

As Shell said, it falls to me to provide some of the early thinking as we begin to develop a workplan in implementing

[ Page 1605 ]

the recommendations of the auditor general's report. These are very early days in our planning. There is a tremendous amount of communication and conversation that we're going to have to have with school boards and our various partners. A number of times, Lynne listed the number of those partners and the diverse placement of those partners in our community.

We just want to profile for you some of our thinking to date. The Ministry of Education had the opportunity to review the report and recommendations of the auditor general's office before the report was published and was asked to make an initial response to their findings, which you will find in the document itself, imbedded between pages 91 and 103. My purpose this morning is simply, very briefly, to walk through some of the highlights of the comments that the Ministry of Education made as part of publishing this report.

We had some overheads. We're not PowerPointers yet. We had some overheads, but we don't have a projector, so I will ask you to refer to the print copies that you have, and we'll work from those, please. I'll send you to the third page.

The Ministry of Education does comment in its remarks in the report that it is our intention to address the recommendations of the report. We certainly value the advice and direction and sort of report card it gave us on our efforts to date. We have organized the 19 recommendations of the report under seven themes. I want to speak to each in turn. These are government's coordination of the initiative; collaboration required between government ministries, school boards and other agencies; issues related to developing, disseminating and implementing policies that relate to safety; issues in the report related to curriculum and learning resources; issues regarding the preparation of teachers to deliver the information to students; the actual instructional practices of teachers and student behaviour in schools; and finally the issue of accountability. I'll turn briefly to give you some of the highlights of the ministry's thinking in each of these areas.

With regard to government's coordination of the safe school initiative, we certainly saw through this report the theme of needing to communicate and convey to the various levels and various constituents in schools and in support of schools some of the materials and information related to safe schools. Certainly we saw in the report that there is not yet universal awareness on the part of educators of the centre itself and the resources available to them. This is a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, you can say a certain percentage of people did not know yet about the centre, which at that point was two years old; yet the corollary would be that we were pleased that as many teachers did know. Certainly there is work to do to advance the understanding of people that it is there to serve as a resource and that the materials can be brought right into their classrooms to help them make a difference on behalf of children.

There was certainly a very practical recommendation that the centre itself and some of the administrative functions of the centre can be enhanced -- its database, its web site. We moved immediately with our partner, the Ministry of Attorney General, and the Burnaby school board, where the centre is housed -- and Telus, as a matter of fact -- to begin to undertake that work, and we're hopeful that by October 31 we will have a much more sophisticated and functional system in place.

We understand that in moving forward on the agenda of safe schools, it's going to be necessary to engage our partners at every level. Shell spoke of the Education Advisory Council, which is a body meeting regularly with representatives of parents, superintendents, boards of trustees, other ministries and so on. We use those same partners in a safe school working group to guide decisions, help set priorities, identify how we can partner and understand what each can bring to the table. We certainly commit to reshaping and revitalizing that working group not only to help the activities underway now but to take this report, understand this report and give us their best guidance in how we can move forward on the recommendations.

[0940]

We do know that our ultimate contact is school districts. As we sit in the ministry, we always have a communication concern for getting information systematically to school districts. We've asked school boards to identify a designated safe school contact, and schools have been pleased to do that. This is a person that we are investing in with training, meetings, communication and so on, so that they can consistently, as school boards, have a link between their activities and the safe schools initiative. Much of the themes here are communication, co-planning, co-implementation.

The second issue relates to collaboration among government ministries and agencies, where the summary statement is: "We'll continue to support school boards in their efforts to involve agencies in their community to more effectively integrate case management across jurisdictions, provide support services to schools and jointly deal with safe school projects and programs."

One of the comments we make in our report is that the ministry is committed to working with our partner social service ministries to improve protocol agreements that guide how ministries will work together in local communities to provide necessary support services to children on the human social service side of the roster. We're certainly in discussions with the Ministry for Children and Families about their formal role in the safe school initiative. Our formal partner at this point is the Ministry of Attorney General, and we think there are other ministries to bring into the tent in that regard. We do recognize the recommendation about enhancing the role of Ministry for Children and Families caseworkers to support families where children are experiencing significant and serious behaviour issues, and we'll be working with that ministry in that regard.

There is considerable interministerial work underway always. We're working today with the Ministry for Children and Families on a suicide prevention training program. It's just a matter of continuing that work and where the rubber truly hits the road in schools to help bridge between different jurisdictions and enhance communication, collaboration and integrated service delivery.

On to the next issue, which is summarized as the development, dissemination and implementation of guidelines related to safety. We felt we saw in the auditor general's report commentary that a number of excellent policies have been developed. There are safe school planning guides. There is a resource on policy regarding suspension. There is a handbook for schools to help them plan responses to critical incidents, such as a catastrophic car accident on a Friday night that might take the lives of some of their students or a child abuse allegation in the middle of a school community.

What we certainly see in the report is the call now for more consistent application and implementation of those pol-

[ Page 1606 ]

icies at the school district and school level. We'll be working with those partners to communicate those messages, make sure everybody is aware of the resources at hand and help advance that agenda.

There certainly was in the report the issue of coordinating the dispersal of information that is available to schools. We have a number of ministries and agencies ready, willing and well positioned to help schools. The numbers of binders, programs and guidelines that flood schools is quite daunting. We need to redouble our efforts to make sure that when these timely resources -- which everyone has agreed are needed -- flow to schools, they flow in a way that supports rather than overwhelms the recipient of that material.

[0945]

You've heard a number of references to the effective behaviour support planning and program and process. We will continue to support the enhancement of that program that shows such promise in the schools where it's underway. We do see the issue of playground safety and the need for school boards to address the skills of playground supervisors. We understand the issue of addressing secondary student aggression. As workers in this area, I can tell you that there are many more resources at hand addressing younger children and elementary school populations than there are ready resources on the shelf for secondary populations. So we have two different issues there in terms of getting information to people.

The report speaks of the issue of clarifying and enhancing student behaviour expectations, calls for schools to more consistently establish and implement and walk the talk on codes of conduct and consequences for conduct. The report speaks, as well, of staff and student interactions -- encouraging processes by which students would more consistently come forward with their concerns and be assured that those will be followed up. We'll certainly be in conversations with partners in this regard.

The last bullet on this page speaks of opportunities to raise awareness of school safety issues with leaders and to explore the means of developing leadership in this area. This is certainly an area in which we have been working quite specifically with the B.C. School Trustees Association and Principals and Vice-Principals Association. They've developed a very well received administrators guide that brings to the desk drawer of every school principal policies, procedures, legislative references and good practice in this regard. That tool has proven to be very pragmatic and very much in demand.

I've spoken briefly, too, about codes of conduct and so on. We recognize the support in the programs for schoolwide responses to behaviour, in which everyone in the school quite literally gets on the same page, learns the same vocabulary, sets the same expectations about behaviour, responds in a consistent way -- teacher to teacher -- when moments of disruptive behaviour occur, and where families are well informed about the standards of practice, the climate that's set and so on. We know how critical the role of leaders will be in setting that tone and implementing that practice in their schools. So we certainly are continuing our efforts in talking to the associations with whom leaders affiliate.

The issue of curriculum and learning resources. British Columbia curriculum throughout the grades promotes the pro-social development of children, taking an active role in trying to prevent problems and develop citizenry and so on. We do recognize the benefit of linking resources to learning outcomes. The ministry has reorganized its collection of recommended learning resources for the elementary grades in its personal planning curriculum. We will be re-examining the format for secondary materials next year, very much in keeping with the recommendation of the report.

[0950]

We recognize the importance of enabling school personnel and students to identify and report depression, suicidal gestures and other sensitive issues to help people stay safe. I can just tell you that in the next two weeks, we will be working with every school district and with Ministry for Children and Families partners to ensure that every school is equipped with someone who becomes an expert in suicide prevention, what the teacher needs to know, and in identifying students with early psychosis -- early identification and early intervention. Those people will be trained, again, as school district contacts to return to their communities to spread the information.

As part of that, this is one example of some response to both the auditor general's report and the Children's Commission's finding about suicide. It will put in the hands of every teacher a very handy-dandy suicide-prevention brochure, "What They Need to Know: A Guide for School Personnel." It's an example of understanding some of the issues and putting resources in the hands of people with training to advance some of these issues.

We agree that encouraging tolerance and acceptance is important and at the same time recognize the sensitivity that's required in dealing with some issues. We are, as a ministry, currently in development of a diversity policy that will set a policy framework for school boards' use in ensuring that their policy and practices regarding racism, homophobia and gender issues are addressed at a practical level in local communities. Many of our programs that we have developed -- the bullying program that Shell spoke of earlier -- very specifically address diversity and the need for understanding in some of these areas.

On the issue of teacher preparation, we agree that teachers in training need instruction and practice in behaviour management, in delivering curriculum and in meeting the diverse needs of students. We are committed to working with deans of the training institutions on the curricular content itself to influence the pre-service training of educators, as well as working to advance the capacity of existing teachers -- which is a significant workforce -- in the area of special needs and how to adapt teaching strategies to mitigate those special needs.

In terms of instructional practice and student behaviour, we continue to support school boards in the implementation of practices included in the safe schools initiative, effective behaviour support, reducing suspensions and so on. We have produced guidelines and resources and are moving into some pilot projects. Again, through further conversation with our partners, we'll see how we can advance those agendas in keeping with the recommendations.

Finally, the issue of accountability. We recognize that school boards need accessible and accurate information to guide the decisions they make, and we will continue to work

[ Page 1607 ]

with school boards to identify data sources that we have. Some will be internal to the ministry. Some will be information that schools have in their own communities about suspension rates, vandalism rates and so on. We'll try to bring, again, under the tent some of this information to guide practice.

All of the programs that we have supported -- the effective behaviour support; the Focus on Bullying program -- are designed to be driven by data. In our early analysis of some of the implementation of those programs, some of the data collection was one of the weak areas of implementation. So we're going to be going into some strategy discussion this fall to see how we can beef up that critical element of people's work. As I said, we'll be identifying data sources across.

In conclusion, we'd like to thank the staff of the office of the auditor general. As Shell said, they were extremely diligent in their work. It was extremely professional, and the report that they've delivered to us is extremely practical in helping guide our work. We do take their recommendations seriously. We are developing a workplan; we will be sharing it and developing it with our education partners, and we are working to have that plan pretty cemented by December 31. We appreciate the recognition of the promising practices underway. We appreciate the recommendations for advancing those efforts, and we find that the report will be extremely helpful in continuing this work.

These are early days for us. As I say, we have much discussion ahead through the fall, and we have, I think, a good feel for what the report is saying and a good feel for the recommended next steps. This report serves as a very useful guide to us in moving forward in partnership to accomplish safe and caring schools.

[0955]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Claudia. So would it be fair for me to conclude that of the 19 recommendations, the ministry is supportive of all 19 recommendations?

C. Roch: We certainly are actively discussing each of those, and how they play out is yet to be determined in terms of advice that we receive from everybody about them. But they are all in active discussion and active deliberation.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Active discussion and active deliberation. I just want to get a sense here. Are there any, at this point in time in your active deliberations, that you're having difficulty with?

C. Roch: There weren't any that we had to deliver a minority report or reject. No, they're all under very active consideration as positive things to do.

J. Weisgerber: A question, I guess, to the auditor general or the ministry. There was nowhere that I could see in the report that dealt with the physical design of schools with respect to how the layout of schools might encourage or discourage aggressive behaviour among students. I mean, it goes back a long time for me, but I remember both being dragged around the corner and in later years probably helping to drag somebody into a quiet corner and rap him around the ears. It seems to me that the design of schools that would eliminate those kinds of places might be an important part of the process. Was there any thought given to that?

L. Ronneseth: Yes, we did think about it, and you have a very good point. There were other factors as well. The scheduling of classes causes a great deal of frustration which can lead to aggression, and how students are assessed -- whether they feel successful at school. That and the physical layout. . . . We looked at those and decided that we had just so many resources and so much time to look at it, so we did scope it down to policies, curriculum, teacher training and evaluating results. But we did think about it.

C. Roch: Could I add a comment? In two of the tools that are available for schools, a safe school planning guide, which is a process that individual schools would go through to examine their policies, practices and physical environment, and the Focus on Bullying program. . . . There is specific reference and specific work to be done in having a school analyze its physical environment and having students themselves comment on what happens when children move between classrooms with hallway bumping up against lockers and so on -- what happens in the washrooms, what happens on the playground. Certainly the report does speak to playground safety, because there are certainly physical places in schools where children are more at risk of physical and verbal aggression.

J. Weisgerber: Does the ministry, in its ongoing design of new schools. . . ? Is there more focus on that now? Does anyone know whether the architects that are designing our schools are being more conscious of this issue?

S. Ladyman: I think that there has been an interesting development in the school design. We went through what we call the mass locker area for a while. It became a problem for school administrators in that when you had the mass locker area, you really had some troubles. Then we went back to designs that had hallways. Now we've gone back to designs where there are some pods in some schools; there are half lockers, not full lockers. I think the auditor general commented about school timetables. One of our problems is that when you have a school of 1,500 and they're all going at the bell at the same time, that creates some really unique situations. So yes, the design has been looked at. It's been tried a number of ways over the last 30 years. We still don't have the perfect design.

R. Thorpe (Chair): When will we have the perfect design, Stewart? No, never mind, Stewart.

D. Zirnhelt: A question, probably to the auditor general's staff, and maybe the ministry wants to comment. . . . I don't see any costing. Nobody's going to question the assumption that we want schools to be safe, and they aren't safe. That ought to be number one. But we're aware that people suggest that core curriculum and training of teachers ought to include knowledge about the resources and environment around them and so on, because that's fundamental to life and the economy. So there are pressures to create core curriculum that are relevant and necessary.

[1000]

My question is about whether or not you have costed any of your findings, which might create budget pressures -- not that they're unnecessary; maybe they're desirable too. But has that been done? Further, are we talking here about changing

[ Page 1608 ]

the quantity or just the quality, maybe, or the configuration of teacher instruction? And the same for the core curriculum in the school: can all of this be accommodated within existing time slots for the programs that need to be adapted?

L. Ronneseth: I believe we can respond to that. For starters -- and you may want to add something, in the ministry -- it's our habit to do cost-benefit analyses of each of our recommendations, so we have done that. Based on certain assumptions, which I will share with you if you want to go through any particular recommendation, we've taken each of these 19 recommendations and come up with benefits that far exceed the costs.

D. Zirnhelt: That doesn't really help somebody budgeting in government, because you could make the argument about prevention in health. We could argue that if we did more community building in some ministry, we would have benefits in the schools. I'm not going to let you off that easy. I mean, is there. . . ?

L. Ronneseth: I can give you details if you want them.

D. Zirnhelt: Well, is this a million-dollar package, or is it. . . ?

L. Ronneseth: Basically all of the recommendations but three are ones where I think it is matter of reconfiguring with the existing resources and some relatively small investment of $10,000 or $20,000 for some additional things -- but not big, relative to the $4 billion. The recommendations that are going to cost money are recommendations 3, 10 and 13, which together we've costed at about a $16 million figure if they were to be fully implemented.

That's the kind of thing, I guess, that the ministry would have to be looking at and deciding, and we would certainly enter into those analyses on their part. Those three are the schoolground supervisors. Most of the aggressive incidents that happen at elementary schools start on the playground and sometimes finish on the playground. It sets the scene for who's picking on who. That's probably the most expensive one. It's based on looking at taking those schoolground supervisors and paying them for an hour before lunch and an hour after lunch so they can be part of what's going on in the school, to be debriefed by the teachers and to debrief the teachers on who looks like they're looking for trouble today, that kind of thing, and to be part of the training for the anti-bullying that's going on in the schools.

That one might cost as much as $7 million. That one alone is probably one of the most important ones, and it's the most expensive one. I don't know if you want me to go into details.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Excuse me. What were the three? You said three. . . .

L. Ronneseth: No. 3, No. 10 and No. 13 are the expensive ones.

Sorry. I've got my own numbers out now. No. 3 was the schoolground supervisors, and that might cost around $5 million if it's fully implemented. No. 10 was also an important one and the most expensive one. That was the $7 million one. No. 10 is about training more teachers to be able to identify the special needs of the students in the early years. Preferably, we thought the focus should start in the elementary school years. If more students coming in the door can be identified as ones who are going to have trouble reading and getting along with each other, and if teachers can be trained to identify this and be able to remediate some of the easier things themselves, we think that could go a long way to having students start off on the right foot.

No. 13 was one that was looking at professional development for principals, mostly, and staff of schools. That one is around $2 million for extra training for the principals in out-of-school suspensions. The whole focus right now seems to be on catching the kids doing it and punishing them. Although there are policy guidelines out for principals to look at alternatives, the principals are telling us: "That's fine to say, but we really don't know how to go about changing things." So we think probably some money should be spent in training for the principals at the schools in how you turn it around.

We haven't given those numbers in the report, because there are numbers based on certain assumptions that would require people agreeing to those assumptions about who you would do it with and how much it would cost and so on. But we costed out the benefits of those as over $60 million a year if you look at terms of costs for students leaving school early, additional costs to welfare payments -- income assistance -- and also for interactions with the justice system later on.

[1005]

R. Thorpe (Chair): David, do you have any more questions?

D. Zirnhelt: No.

M. Coell: Firstly, I'd like to say that I appreciate the report and the response from the Ministry of Education as well.

I don't really have a question as much as I'd like your comments on my thoughts. On page 107 of the auditor's report, the appendix A talks about early childhood development and family background and community inputs. That seems to be another area that needs to be tackled to deal with bullying in schools and safety. I just wondered how much thought and maybe what future direction the ministry would have in dealing with families.

You get a child that maybe becomes a bully at grade 5 or grade 6 or grade 7, is a juvenile delinquent in grade 8 and grade 9 and ends up in prison by the time they are 18 or 19 years old. So how do you get to that person before they're. . . ? I'm trying to think: you get to the problem before it's a problem. That's dealing with the family and all of the things that early childhood development and family background have to deal with.

I just wondered whether the ministry or the auditor considered that aspect of bullying before it becomes a problem that you have to deal with and what the education system can do to work with parents. Obviously they're going to be having a variety of problems. Maybe they were indeed a bully or an abuser themselves, and that's how the child learns to be an abuser. That doesn't seem to be covered in the report, and maybe it wasn't something that you were looking at. But it's part of the problem, and I just wondered how you're dealing with that with respect to this report.

[ Page 1609 ]

The other is that I think all of the recommendations dealing with teachers are good and will be helpful. Again you're relying on teachers more and more to be taking the place of some of the things that families should and used to do with teaching respect and ability to get along with kids and not be bullies and that sort of thing. I just wondered how that's integrated in this report as well.

So there are really the two areas: the expectation of teachers and the working with families to make sure that you don't end up with a bully -- that that's dealt with before the problem arises in the schools.

S. Ladyman: I've got the nod that I'm to reply to your questions, member.

R. Thorpe (Chair): You didn't get bullied, did you?

A Voice: Never.

S. Ladyman: I was co-chair of the special ed review, and this report was released on June 19. It's interesting. All those things you just commented on are actually also in this report as well as in the auditor general's safe schools report in some format.

The ministry has, as one of its major thrusts, what we call early school success. In the report we talk about how we assess and intervene in students in the first year of schooling -- age five, kindergarten.

We talk in the report about a pilot project in North Vancouver where 1,200 students were assessed with about a 20-minute assessment in the first eight weeks of kindergarten. It was discovered that just in the area of skills -- which then starts to probably get you into the areas of other behaviours -- 25 percent of the population arriving in the first eight weeks of school had some skill deficiencies. The teachers were trained to take those children and apply certain teaching strategies in kindergarten and grade 1. At a test at the end of grade 1, of those same students -- the 25 percent -- 5 percent had a skill deficiency. So if you just think about this for a minute in terms of frustration levels, anger, learning, in the first two years of school we can decrease that type of skill deficiency by 20 percent for the English-speaking population in North Vancouver. In analyzing the 1,200 and the portion that were non-English-speaking students, 40 percent of students arriving in kindergarten had skill deficiency at the start of kindergarten. By the end of grade 1, it was down to 9 percent.

[1010]

Our belief is that we must concentrate in the first years of schooling, because our mandate in education starts at age five. In this report we also comment that we need the Ministry of Health and the Ministry for Children and Families to get protocols between ministers and ministries. Unless we share that information and try to help parents from the age zero to five, we're really putting a lot of dollars starting at age five, but the patterns are developed. Research will tell you that 70 percent of learning is achieved by humans before the age of seven. So we've got some very interesting society issues to deal with here. I think it's more than just education; we as society really need to think about the community, the ministries, in solving this issue.

I hope that was kind of an answer to your question. We are very cognizant. But how do you involve parents? I mean, there's been a big push lately for full-time kindergarten. The research will probably show you that's not the answer. Those resources, instead of being put in to another half-day of kindergarten -- let's say, $90 million. . . . If we put those in from age zero to five, society may be better off.

S. Harvey: I would just add that the pilot study in North Vancouver that Stewart referred to really came to our attention as a result of the special education review. And we're actively talking about ways in which we can extend that to every kindergarten class in the province. As with the response here, we're at the developmental stages there. But the statistics Stewart cited were so dramatic that we think there's tremendous potential within the mandate of education, which starts at K.

L. Ronneseth: I'd like to add one more thing. With regard to your question about parenting skills and just generally about how we could get parents to be better parents, I want to point out one thing that we found in our audit. That was that it may not be the role of the Ministry of Education to be going out and looking at that.

We were approached by the provincial agency that is known as the B.C. Coalition of Parent Educators, who are a bunch of volunteers who put on programs aimed at trying to help parents be better parents. One of the things they pointed out to us was that there only seems to be funding available to those parents who've been identified as having extreme difficulty in parenting -- through the ministry of human resources, I guess. So this agency has been looking for funding and has not been able to find any ministry program that seems to be aligned with that general look at parents who are average parents having difficulties that aren't identified as extreme. That's sort of a reflection. I think that answers part of your question.

S. Ladyman: Could I comment to the second question of the member about the issue of teachers in terms of replacing what families are doing? One of the things we're finding, even in the review of special education, is that we keep adding on to what we say are the skills teachers should have. It's interesting. In the last two years inside the ministry, we've had a social studies review, which recommended that teachers have some skills in the teaching of social studies. We've had a mathematics review, which recommends that teacher training should include mathematics.

We tried to avoid it in the special ed by saying that there would be specific courses. We were pressured in our review of special ed by many parents telling us that every teacher should know how to deal with an autistic child. Our comment back in the meetings was that there are about 40,000 teachers, in rough figures, in British Columbia. There are about 1,100 autistic kids presently in the K-to-12 system. It is not a wise use of resources to train every teacher to deal with every situation.

I think that what we're seeing is that we as society have to start to realize what the role is of the school. Shell told you that students are in school 15 percent of the calendar year. We're starting to feel, as the education system, that we are the only thing in society that seems to be the glue keeping it together. So I think that we have to, as a society, really do some wrestling here, as safety is not only an issue for schools. It's for society in general.

[ Page 1610 ]

I would urge that we not kind of try to fix some of these problems by loading it onto one or two groups, but that we rethink what should society be doing.

[1015]

M. Coell: I appreciate those comments. Thank you.

As a follow-up to this, I guess one of the things that I would like to see is. . . . Are the skills that are going to be taught and hopefully learned going to transfer to outside the school, which was the last speaker's comment? Do you just get a well-behaved bully at school, who punches someone out in the mall? Or are we going to be able to follow this up and say that these programs actually had a long-term effect -- that they learned something in grades 1 through 7 that they learned for the rest of their lives? I just wondered what kind of follow-up we could be doing to see whether. . . .

I guess what I'm looking at is that these may be very, very valuable programs, in that they stop someone from being a bully to a juvenile delinquent to someone who spends time in our prison systems. Are we going to be able to do any follow-up on that?

S. Harvey: Claudia's probably better able. . . . But I was just thinking back to our response, and I found a reference in it that I think speaks in part to your question. In the ministry's written response to the report, we said: "Our schools reflect their communities and are influenced by them, sometimes mirroring the violence that is present in society. However, schools are uniquely positioned to lead and model positive, constructive alternatives to violence and victimization. Students can be taught pro-social skills, and schools can lead communities by example." So I think we have some optimism that it will transfer.

M. Coell: I have the same optimism. What I was looking for was: are we going to follow it up with some sort of review? I'm open to suggestions there.

S. Ladyman: I guess there is another issue here we must think about. Our present school system is based, really, on an industrial model. Our children are going into a new world with global economies and all those other issues. And I think that somehow we have to figure out the way we take these skills and transfer them. They're not necessarily always done within the bricks and mortar of a school -- not from nine to three, 185 days a year. I think we have some challenges as a society to think about. These students are going into a different world.

Not only is it a technological world, but the multicultural nature of our country -- no boundaries anymore, jetting all over the world at any time, international students coming to this country because we have such a good education system. . . . And I think we have some real challenges here on this transferring of skills, realizing that maybe our present bricks-and-mortar system is not the ideal way for some of these students.

R. Thorpe (Chair): And when are you going to share your views with British Columbians on what we should be doing in that area?

S. Ladyman: Well, I think presently we're doing that inside the ministry in a number of ways. I mean, we're looking at different configurations of schools. Some boards are going to a middle school concept. We've heard of the extended day. We've heard of year-round schooling. We've heard of distributed learning. Those are all coming very fast at us.

But you know, when you look at our present way we do business, it is a very industrial model. There is very little in public education since 1927, when John Dewey wrote a book. I mean, yes, we've added technology, but there were open-area schools in 1927. We still build schools with blackboards, facing the front. There are a whole number of things we do that we have to start to rethink. Our children are going into a different world.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Do you think that one of the things we're going to have to be prepared to do, then, in view of some of these things that you've thrown out here for discussion, is to have the courage to go to different districts around the province and aggressively pilot such possible new concepts?

[1020]

My concern, Stewart, is that we work through these things, we study them, we review them, we restudy them, and then we try to make them provincewide all at one time. You know, the world doesn't stop; it keeps changing, and we don't catch up. Do you think that's one of the things we're going to have to do -- take some bold steps in some of these areas that you're talking about?

S. Ladyman: For the survival of public education the answer is yes; I think we have to do that. But, I mean, look at the way we operate. Everything is done on an equity-type basis, or we have a whole number of issues that constrict what we want to do. And I think we have to rethink this whole concept of where we're going, for the survival of public education. British Columbia has one of the best. . . . I mean, our curriculum. . . . You heard about our recognition for the Focus on Bullying from a big organization. We are developing things and doing things that are cutting-edge. We're forever getting calls from other provinces or out of country on some of the issues we're doing.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): I'd love to continue down this road; it could be quite inspiring. But I have a very simple question, and I'm not sure whether to ask it of the ministry or of the auditor general's office. But are there legal impediments to the kinds of relationships you see need to be developed when you're talking about relationships between teachers, ministry workers, Ministry for Children and Families, Attorney General ministry? Are there any legal impediments to sharing the kind of information that would be useful in terms of helping a student at school?

C. Roch: Anecdotally, when we have spoken to school districts, they say that the biggest obstacle they are experiencing in coordinating necessary services is about information-sharing -- receiving it from preschool environments as children enter school, working collaboratively between jurisdictions. And we are working multiministry to develop some information-sharing protocols, agreements by which communities will literally agree to share information.

We're unfolding and unwrapping the legislative basis upon which each jurisdiction works. We're guided in our

[ Page 1611 ]

system by the School Act. The Ministry for Children is guided by some of the legislative references in the Child, Family and Community Service Act, and Freedom of Information Act. And they aren't all completely as aligned as they may be. So we are finding some systemic barriers in some of the legislative bases, and we'll be examining that, because in practice it absolutely does present barriers to information-sharing.

L. Ronneseth: I'd like to add to that, if I may -- auditor general's staff speaking here. We found when we talked to people in the system on both sides that, yes, there are some legal reasons why there are certain details that you might not want to share between the teacher and the MCF worker. But there are other details that it is appropriate to share. For example, if I'm a teacher, and one of my students is going to be in court this morning because the parent may be abusing the child, I think it's appropriate that I be told that my student is going to be in court over a family matter. There's no violation of privacy there.

I think the MCF workers need to be made clear that they can talk about the fact that there's a court case and when it is, without saying why and getting into details. So I think that's a simple working-level type of communication that needs to be made clearer than it presently is. And I know part of the reason it's not happening is that these resource workers from the Ministry for Children and Families are working really hard, and they're busy doing lots of things. So it means taking time out to phone a teacher and tell them. I think it's that administration that's probably the basis for the problem.

[1025]

G. Farrell-Collins: I'd like to come back to one of the areas discussed in the report, and that's the issue of data collection. It seems to me that it's an area that's going to be exceedingly difficult to try and fill in, because aside from, I suppose, anecdotal evidence or polling of some sort or those kinds of methods, I'm not sure that teachers have the time or that schools have the ability to collect accurate data on the types of bullying that are taking place. It wasn't that long ago that I was in school. I mean, if you're going to try and track the types of verbal abuse, physical abuse, altercations, threats, intimidation or pressure that come to bear on a student just in the time they are on the confines of the school property. . . . I think it's virtually impossible. I'd be interested to hear what ideas you have on collecting that data, or whether the attempt that's perhaps more measurable would be to do some fairly narrow but exhaustive studies of one school or one classroom and try to apply it in a broader way, because I just don't see how you're possibly going to be able to deal with that.

I think it was Murray who mentioned the role of bullying off school premises. When I was growing up, fights didn't happen at school; they happened in the back alley down the way. That's where the problems were settled -- off school property, for just the reason that there were no teachers around. So I don't know how you're going to collect that kind of data and have it be in any way an accurate reflection of what's actually happening. I'd be curious to see what your thoughts are on how you might do that.

L. Ronneseth: I think it's appropriate that the auditor general staff answer that first, because it was our recommendation. I'll start by saying that I agree; it would be difficult to track what happens off the schoolgrounds. We're not asking for perfect information here, but I held the same view as what you just expressed when I started this audit. Also, many of the people I spoke to in the beginning said the same thing you were saying: how impractical it would be to expect this of people in the school.

We visited Prince George school district, though, and found out they have a system there they've developed that we think is a good system. Now, we're not expecting every teacher in every classroom of the province to be recording everything they see in the hallways, in the washrooms and in the classrooms. What we're calling for is. . . . If an incident occurs that's worthy of referring the student to a counsellor or to the principal, then we think that the reasons behind that incident should be tracked -- and possibly even tracked by student.

We found in Prince George that they've developed a relatively simple database on FileMaker Pro that tracks, for each school. . . . It's not implemented yet in every school, but we visited a couple of schools where it was working, talked to the people there and found out it's pretty simple to administer.

The administrator has a laptop like this in his or her office, where they can call up any student. If the student is referred, they can either do it right in front of the student while they're talking to them, or they can enter it into a sheet and have someone else enter it later. It tracks things like what's the student's name, what time of day did it occur, where did it occur, who is the staff person who was involved, who are the other students who were involved and the student's version of the underlying cause. Then, if they interview other people as part of their routine process, that data also gets entered into the system.

Reports are then produced that say: "Here's where it's happening," or "Here's a staff person that's having more difficulty than other staff people," or "Here's a student who's having more difficulty, and here's the underlying reason for this student's difficulty." It gives them an opportunity to say: "In our school we've got problems with racism, because 80 percent of these referrals are around racism. Have we got an anti-racism program? Is it working -- yes or no?" That's the kind of thing we're calling for in our recommendation, and it isn't expensive.

C. Roch: May I add some comments? The issue of identifying bullying -- I just want to speak to the technology of all of this for a moment -- is very difficult. Research is very clear that bullying is an underground activity -- that if you were to ask adults the degree to which they think they identify bullying, they would say that they are picking up the majority of it. And yet research would suggest that we're only seeing about 25 percent of the incidents. So part of our strategy in addressing bullying is literally to have the conversation with everyone and get common agreement of what the standard is here. What's the difference between attitudes of "boys will be boys," and what happens when there is inconsistency between educators in a building, one responding to a behaviour and one not? That's very mixed information for children.

[1030]

The other thing that we know, in our look at what needs to be done, is that in any incident of bullying, there will be an instigator of bullying and a victim of a bullying incident. We

[ Page 1612 ]

don't actually speak of bullies and victims, because these roles are so interchangeable moment to moment. But we know that the biggest asset we have is the people who stand by: the other children themselves -- by far in the majority -- who aren't trained to take action. In fact, it's a culture of fear of reporting, fear of ratting, fear of retaliation. So it's an extremely complex dynamic to even bring the underground activity of bullying to the fore and get everyone to agree on what's happening.

But certainly Lynne's comments about consistent understanding, consistent rules, children trained to come to agreement of what bullying will be, trained to take action as bystanders, trained to report, with everyone knowing in a school environment that it is recorded at the office, that there are consequences. One of the first steps in our bullying program is: "Stop it and name it." Give that behaviour a name. It's not "boys will be boys"; it's an incident of aggression.

So there's a tremendous amount of training and conversation, because I don't think we in this room would have common agreement about what is intimidation and harassment and acceptability. It's extremely complex. But we certainly support the notion of more consistent data, because again, it informs: what are the circumstances, where is it happening, and who's doing it?

G. Farrell-Collins: Could you just follow up, then? You mentioned one example where you feel that productive, valuable data is being collected. Are there other ways, other methods, that you're recommending? Are there other ways that are being discussed or in place in other jurisdictions, or is that it essentially?

L. Ronneseth: It depends whether you're talking about the prevention of it or the recording of incidents that are actually. . . .

G. Farrell-Collins: I'm talking about collecting data on incidents that occur.

L. Ronneseth: On the actual incidents that are reported -- which, as Claudia's pointing out, are a small percent.

G. Farrell-Collins: No. My question is on collecting data of occurrences, whether they are reported now or not. One of the issues you raised was having quality data. So it's not just the ones that are reported; it's how you're going to try and see that they're reported or ensure that they're reported. I'm wondering if there are any. . . . You've given us one example of a location where you think they are collecting some valuable data, complete or not, so it's a method. Are there other suggestions or recommendations that have been made for items that are being discussed, to increase the amount of data collected and the quality of the data collected?

L. Ronneseth: None that I can make, I guess -- that are practical. I mean, we certainly observed in every school we visited that they had systems in place, but it was mostly around tracking who the kid was and whether they should be suspended or not. So in terms of our recommendation, we were giving the Prince George example because that's the only one we've seen where they seem to have a system that looked good to us. We didn't find anything else in research that anyone was applying. I think it's a relatively new concept for people who are running schools.

S. Harvey: If I could comment briefly. I'm glad you raised the question, because I did want to come back to the Chair's initial question, which was around: where are we going to run with all the recommendations? The one that's most problematic to us is, I think, No. 19, for some of the reasons that you named. We support the intent and the objectives of the recommendation, but I must admit we don't know yet how to implement it. Defining the kind of behaviours we're talking about in a consistent way, so you could consistently collect the data, will be a huge challenge.

Right now we're doing research into it, but we don't know yet how to fully implement it. We think we're very good at collecting systemwide data on reading and writing and numeracy, because we can be objective about those. The definitions around the behaviour, for the reasons Claudia cited, make it a much more subjective kind of area. So we're investing some energy in doing some research, but it's not obvious to us right now that this is the way we should go to get there.

S. Orcherton: This is a very interesting topic. It was interesting when you said that children spend about 15 percent of their time in school. Clearly this is an important report. It talks about not only how you can make schools a safer place, but how we can make the broader spectrum of society a safer place and how we can build a better community for us all to live in, which is free of those kinds of harassments and bullying and so on.

It's not surprising, I don't think, that the focus is on the schools, however, because that's the place where children come together collectively and all of the pieces that make them up as individuals are all brought to bear. It's a place where flashpoints can occur and sometimes do occur, either on the schoolground or off the schoolground.

[1035]

I was recollecting, when my friend across the way was talking about the corridors in schools, the same experiences when I was in school. Another member was talking about the confrontations that occur off the schoolground, and I recollect those as well. It struck me that in my time, when those things were occurring, that was peer pressure at its worst and in the most negative of contexts, which leads me to a few questions.

Has anyone considered -- either the auditor general or the Ministry of Education -- how we deal, when we get to the point where someone's going to be suspended. . . ? How do we deal with those kinds of questions? There are a number of pilots that have been done through the criminal justice system around peer judgment and peers doling out punishment. It's been done through a method where prominent people in the community. . . . It could be the mayor, a prominent sports figure, somebody who's in television -- somebody prominent in the community. It could be the manager of the local drugstore, somebody that's well known in the community. Has there been any thought to bringing people together in that fashion to deal with students who are right at the edge of crossing the line or have crossed the line? That's my first question. Was any thought given to that in terms of how we can make safer schools?

S. Ladyman: I think that basically our School Act is very limiting in that the principal is in charge of the school, and we, the co-authors of the special ed review and I. . . . In this whole issue of suspension -- it doesn't matter what reason it's for, be

[ Page 1613 ]

it for the safety, bullying or whatever -- we believe that there needs to be some dispute resolution or mediation processes put in place, because right now it's very lockstep: teacher, complaint to the principal, principal determines if it's less than five days, student's out.

There is within the legislation what we call the appeals bylaw that every school board has, and it's also lockstep. It goes from the employee to the principal to the superintendent's office and then to the board to determine. . . . We do, in our special ed review, comment about the fairness of such things. I am well aware that there are some districts in this province where in some schools they work with the court system to deal with how to deal with community-type service issues -- something like you're mentioning, Steve. But it's not something that we've really investigated, because our School Act is very lockstep on the suspension issue presently.

S. Orcherton: By way of suggestion, I think it's something that should be investigated, because we can offer all the information we can to young people and all the information we can to families, but at the end of the day, sadly, I predict there will always be people who will act out by bullying in a confrontational manner.

I think there are two ways to deal with that. One is through the inflicting of direct punishment, which is the suspension. The other is far more productive, and that's through peer pressure, which I could characterize quite easily as public humiliation and embarrassment with people that you respect. I think that the second method has a far better result at the end of the day, because after a while being suspended from school just becomes a natural course of events. But being humiliated with your peers and with others is much more problematic.

I'm wondering -- and there's some reference in the report around the information packages that are available. . . . I have a tendency sometimes to think that we offer so much information that we have information overload. People just put those pamphlets and brochures to one side, and it becomes something that gets recycled at some point during the year. I do have some experience, though, in some direct programs -- again, getting back to peers working with students, like the 841-KOZ, and in Victoria, Rock Solid, and those kinds of initiatives. I'm not sure whether they're being offered all over the province. I think they are in a haphazard sort of way.

[1040]

But I wonder how much time was spent in preparing this report around that kind of an issue. And would it be, maybe in the auditor general's opinion or in the ministry's opinion, a better expenditure of funds to support those kinds of in-class or in-the-auditorium or in-the-gymnasium hands-on examples of what's not expected in society around racism, around drugs, around violence and those kinds of things? I'm sure you're aware of those kinds of programs and initiatives. I hope you are.

L. Ronneseth: Yes, we did look into those. That's covered in our report, under the section where we talk about community-based programs -- where police agencies such as Rock Solid come in, or community agencies like multiculturalism associations come in.

The anecdotal evidence we collected around those was that some of them seemed to be quite effective and some of them were not so effective. Part of the difficulty. . . . There are two things. One is that in the implementation, it seems like sometimes these agencies come in, spend a couple of hours or a day, and then they're gone. So the integration of the delivery of what they do isn't always as good as we think it should be. Secondly, the issue of. . . . No one's really measuring to see whether it's making a difference. So we did hear that some were good, but there's not really any sort of tracking to see whether or not it influenced the students' thinking, never mind their behaviours. So it's really hard to say.

S. Orcherton: I'm not advocating going around tracking these things. My view is that there's a problem out there around bullying, around racism, around the use of drugs in schools and those kinds of things. The magnitude of the problem could be extremely high or it could be very low, but if there is a problem, I think it's a responsibility to make sure that there's some information delivered to people. So I don't think it makes any difference what the level is particularly. It's simply a matter of responsibility to get it out to folks.

In your report, did you look at. . . ? You talked about different school districts. Did you break it down to look at different schools inside the school districts? Further than that, did you look at the different social and economic circumstances and situations attached to districts and to schools?

L. Ronneseth: Only informally. We don't have the resources to be trying to audit an individual school district or individual schools. So we collected a bit of information from each area -- not enough to pass judgment on a particular school district or school. But certainly it was in our minds when we picked schools that we did pick some that were known to be in different socioeconomic background areas. Some schools were considered problem schools, and some were considered model schools. We were interested in finding out whether or not socioeconomic factors played a role, and certainly we think they did. But we don't comment on that in the report, because we didn't visit enough schools of different types to be able to say.

S. Orcherton: I've got another couple of points I wanted to ask. Has the ministry done any tracking in regards to that question around the social and economic circumstances of people attached to different districts or the regional aspects of different districts? And has any work been done around identifying where problems. . . ? Are there areas in the province that are clearly problematic in terms of these kinds of questions that threaten the safety of schools and students and those kinds of things? Has there been any kind of study on that? Or is it sort of a broader kind of perspective?

C. Roch: I think I would say that we have not yet, in a systematic way, examined the data we have about schools and safety in relation to socioeconomic status. I do know that every year, data is provided, and profiles of school districts are provided by the ministry to those schools to help them better understand their circumstances. So I can't comment at a school district level on what information they have about their different circumstances. But I do know that it's not at this point collected centrally.

I would like to add a comment to Lynne's comments about the school as a unit of measurement. In part of our early work of examining what we know and what tools we have in

[ Page 1614 ]

our system for examining school safety, we have had a co-op student working this term to go through school accreditation reports for the last two or three years to examine what students themselves are saying in response to the question, "How safe do you feel at school?" and to identify the percentage at which schools themselves are identifying school safety as one of the top issues that they'll be addressing in their growth plans and activities, coming from a school accreditation.

[1045]

It's very early information coming to us, but what we're finding is that fairly consistently students are reporting feeling more safe in elementary schools than they are in middle schools or than they are in secondary schools, so there seems to be a fall in the feeling of safety reported by students themselves. It was very interesting for us to see that in the 200 schools that were accredited last year and where they were limited in the number of areas in which they wanted to identify as priorities, a third of those schools did identify school safety as one of the things they would be working on. So I think it does begin to suggest to us that at the level of the school, schools are understanding the issues and placing school safety and student well-being pretty high in the pecking order of things to be dealt with.

S. Orcherton: Two more points. I hope I won't be too long, so I can let others have a turn.

What the ministry has been doing for some time through the school boards is delivering information and trying to identify resource people in the schools to deal with issues around safety, because there are folks that aren't contributing to a healthy place for young people to be in trying to get information about by way of pamphlets, by way of training people, by a whole variety of different aspects.

Back to the 15 percent of the time in the school, there are questions around family, and there are other influences on young people that they bring to school and that manifest themselves in unacceptable behaviour. One of the current issues that is being wrestled with by this government and by other governments and other jurisdictions is the whole question of television and media, video games, and the impact of those kinds of information. The ministry is trying to deliver information to students. On the other side, we've arguably got, because there is a greater amount of time being spent in front of television watching "World Wide Wrestling" and other circumstances. . . . Does the ministry have any kind of an opinion on that? Has anybody turned their mind to that question? Is that something that's being discussed in schools? Or will that manifest itself in curriculum changes in terms of what the teachers are involved in?

C. Roch: I would say that we're aware of the issue in our own lives. We're aware as parents; we see it in our families; we see it when we send our children to hockey and look at the behaviour of people in the stands, and so on. Certainly the issue of media awareness and media savvy is covered in curriculum, so it is certainly addressed throughout. But I would agree with you. As a parent of young children, I'm swimming upstream to counter all of the other influences on my children.

S. Orcherton: My closing comment is just to echo yours. It is an uphill battle in the face of information and the lack of consequences that young people see in terms of television and shows and the lack of reality that's there. It certainly is an uphill battle to deal with these kinds of questions.

I'll leave it at that for now. I've enjoyed the report, and clearly there's a lot of work that needs to be done. Some coordination between different ministries, I think, would be a step in the right direction. As I say, my word of advice, for what it's worth, is more hands-on dealing with young people in schools through peer initiatives, and I'd like to see something around the discipline question mirrored after the criminal justice programs. I think Maple Ridge has a very good system in place. It worked very well. It seems to work well in that instance, and it potentially has the capacity, I think, to keep young people out of the justice system if we have some kind of program like that in the early days in school.

Thanks very much.

G. Farrell-Collins: I have a quick follow-up to one of Steve's earlier questions. I think he's right. I think young people often have a distorted view of what's right and what's wrong because they have such a small group of people that they deal with on an ongoing basis. I do think there's some real merit in involving community leaders -- people other than their parents or their teachers or police officers or judges or social workers, who have no specific contact with the child, to sit down in small groups and say: "Look, guy, that's just not on. That's not the way we work around here." I think there's some real merit in that.

[1050]

I had a real quick question in follow-up. You said that the School Act was restrictive in that the principal was the judge and jury on many of those cases. Is there anything in the School Act, though, that precludes a principal from setting up this type of community justice or influence or whatever you want to call it, this type of involvement from community leaders, in dealing with those issues?

S. Ladyman: No. Nothing restrictive.

S. Harvey: I might add that New Westminster Secondary School has, for a number of years now, been working with the Justice Institute around conflict resolution. They're actually training teachers, the janitors and the students. A great many of the students are enrolled in a career prep program that happens to be around conflict resolution. The principal and the superintendent report quite dramatic results from that, so it's an interesting case study.

R. Thorpe (Chair): David, you had some questions?

D. Zirnhelt: What hasn't emerged for me is a clear picture of whether or not we have to add resources or whether we can rearrange effectively. It was opened up, and we started to talk about the industrial model of the school being perhaps not appropriate. I would put my question to you this way: if we remodel the school to meet society's needs, broadly speaking -- I take that to be the economic needs as well -- is the school environment going to be safer?

It's easy for people to say: "Spend more on prevention." It's easy to say that. It doesn't make it any easier to make the trade-offs. As soon as you don't deal with the effects of bullying and say, "No, we're spending our additional

[ Page 1615 ]

resources on this," or we tell teachers or ministers, "There's no raise this year," or whatever -- that we're going to spend it on more prevention programs -- then somebody has got to take responsibility for that. So I'm pushing back a little bit in the suggestion that some of these things might cost money and, say, nobody agrees. But if we rethought the school, along with some of the things you are thinking of, would it be more cost-effective? Would the education be more cost-effective in terms of reducing the amount of violence? Would schools be safer if we remodelled the schools?

S. Ladyman: I think the answer to that is yes, but you can't look at little bits of the puzzle. You have to look at the whole issue of schooling. Therefore you need flexibilities in a whole number of things, which means you may have to look at a school act; you may have to look at the funding, the capping, the targeting. You'll have to look at training issues, certification issues. You'll have to look at school timetables, school designs; there are a whole number of issues here.

One of the biggest problems will be convincing parents that this change will be good, because: "The system I came through worked for me, and it's just been great, and my child should go through that same system." So I think that my quick answer is yes, but it's a huge undertaking to change public education. People say it's one of the last institutions that seems to be changing in our whole society.

C. Roch: I would just add some general comments. The more I work in areas of social policy, the more I realize that the knee bone is connected to the. . .whatever. In government's initiative on child care, people who are expert in child care have told me that you can trace the presence of child care facilities on school grounds to less school vandalism.

[1055]

People who work with programs such as Nights Alive, which engages youth who would otherwise be roaming the streets, tell us that those schools can report reduced broken windows and other forms of vandalism. The degree to which community centres are available to children and children are engaged, the degree to which we reduce latchkey children, the degree to which we reduce suspension. . . . The evidence is clear that while suspension does have a part in the repertoire of responses to difficult behaviour situations, when students are suspended, it is true that they are themselves more at risk as a consequence, and it is also true that the community is more at risk from those students when they are suspended. In the end these things all come together.

I think there are ways in which we can work smarter with the dollars that we do have. The effective behaviour support program is an example, where schools will say there are a very few children in every school -- maybe 2 or 3 percent -- who have been described in the program as the rat pack children, very small in number but taking an inordinate amount of resources -- principals' time, vice-principals' time, teachers' time -- and resources being sucked from other things to deal with those issues.

The research is clear: if you don't deal with the behaviour and conduct expectations for the other 98 percent of the school, you will never begin to crack into the behaviours of that 2 percent. And when you do establish climates and codes of conducts and behavioral expectations in school, then suddenly resources are freed to be redirected to the more difficult children. So I think there is a lot of work where we can work smarter without necessarily adding additional new resources.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): What you have said makes me think of community schools. We have a few community schools around this province. There was a move in the early seventies that this was the wave of the future, and we haven't really moved a long way beyond that. But in community schools, where you have children and the community interacting together in the school. . . . Do you have any kind of information available to you that indicates any kind of relative safety issues around community schools as compared to other schools?

C. Roch: I'm afraid -- Stewart and I just smiled -- we don't have the data at hand. Community schools are actually under the auspices of the Ministry for Children and Families. But again I'm struck by, in the absence of community school designation and community school funding. . . . I'm told time and time again of schools which believe themselves to be community schools and function as community schools and have moms coming to school with tots doing reading programs, putting a washing machine and a dryer in the school so mom can do her laundry while learning better parenting skills and so on.

So I think one of the reasons for the Safe School Centre and the safe school initiative was to begin to corral and learn more about the effect of practices that are springing up all over the place at a grass-roots level and begin to network among some of the solutions that communities have found.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Are school lunch programs a part of what you're looking at?

C. Roch: Inner-city schools are now wrapped in what the Ministry for Children and Families would describe as the social equity envelope. It involves community school funding, inner-city school funding and school meal funding, and that is the Ministry for Children and Families.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Well, I can speak only from my own experience, but I know I get a little ratty if I haven't had my lunch. I just wonder if there's any following of that in the Safe School Centre.

C. Roch: Not directly linked -- and this is certainly one of the areas where, as the report says, we need to better link to that critical service provider.

V. Roddick: Stewart, your comments have been real common sense about the education system and the changes that are necessary. But the one thing that hasn't been brought up at all here is to do with bullying; it's energy. And what's really missing in the school system -- any mom I've talked to today -- is the sports, if you don't have something for these children to do to boil off the energy. The real problem today is that it has been taken out of the schools and put into the community. So your Chevron station is financing a soccer team.

[1100]

Now, there is real competition; they only take the kids that are really good; whereas in the schools you can have

[ Page 1616 ]

several levels of teams, so that you don't just pick the best for the football team or soccer team. You can have four or six teams. I haven't read this absolutely word for word, but I have seen no mention of sports or physical education whatsoever in this. I feel that could be a real. . . . It shouldn't cost a whole lot more money to have these children involved in physical exercise and boil off some of that energy.

Now, speaking of design, just one more comment on this energy: design of schools has closed all the windows. And if it's still an old school, they're all painted. Now, for anybody who's had any kids, if you sit a child in front of a television set and keep it there, it's ready to explode after about four hours -- literally explode. If you keep a child rammed in a schoolroom with nothing to divert it -- no fresh air, nothing to see outside -- that energy is going to just build up, just the same way as it does in front of a video game or a television set. If you don't (a) open the windows or (b) give it some physical education, no wonder you've got more problems in the schools today, I think, than we ever did. We had bullying and teasing and the whole nine yards, but they ran us off our feet. And I think that maybe that's a good practical suggestion.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Does the auditor general's department or the ministry of Education want to respond?

L. Ronneseth: Well, I don't have a very robust response, except to say that we did ask about things like intramural sports and things like that. We didn't disclose the results in our report on that specific point. But when we surveyed the schools about how many of them had programs like that for noon-hour sports and activities, a really high number -- I think it was 80 percent -- reported that they had. We were kind of wondering if that was really an accurate number. But given that we asked the question, if it gives you any comfort, 80 percent of the schools responded that, yes, they do have programs for sports activities and things at lunchtime and that they felt it was very valuable in terms of reducing the aggression.

V. Roddick: Oh, they did actually say that.

L. Ronneseth: Yes, 80 percent of them did. Part of the reason we didn't report it was that I guess we were a little skeptical about whether that was actually so. We would like to have gone out and actually looked to see. Is it really a program, or is it a couple of kids kicking a ball against a fence or something? Because we didn't see it in person, and the questionnaire really didn't give us adequate evidence, we weren't comfortable saying: "Did you know that 80 percent of B.C. schools have intramural programs at lunchtime?" That's why you don't see it in the report.

V. Roddick: Well, not just at lunchtime.

L. Ronneseth: Or after school.

V. Roddick: I'm talking about phys ed as a part of the curriculum.

L. Ronneseth: Yeah. We did not get into the phys ed issue. That was one of the other ones that came up, along with scheduling and design of schools. But that's a policy question about whether or not kids are required to do phys ed anymore, and we decided not to get into it.

S. Ladyman: Physical education is required as part of the curriculum from kindergarten to grade 10, but it's optional in grade 11 and grade 12. So it is within the curriculum framework of the province. I guess the definition of physical education, though, can vary within that curriculum. So that may be your energy-level issue.

The other issue you've commented on is those whole extracurricular-type things. I think we have to go back to 1988. Changes in the School Act and bargaining arena and all those other issues have taken that on, plus the desire of some parents to have their children involved in, as you call it, the elite or higher-level community-type programs. So that's a real struggle out there. What does the school system do? Again, what is the purpose of school? What should it cover? Yes, it's supposed to cover intellectual, social and career development. And how much should it go beyond the regular school day? Those are huge issues that have major ramifications.

[1105]

V. Roddick: I appreciate your comments. I just feel that if you're going to look into all this safety and the bullying. . . . The time and effort and energy that you've all seriously put into this has obviously been terrific. It must have been fairly costly in the time and energy, let alone the printing. Maybe looking into physical education is not such a bad idea -- real physical education, as you say, not just a little bit of energy spent. It's possibly something that could be of value.

S. Harvey: My answer is going to be a bit vague. I consulted my colleagues, and we don't have the information, but there's a report that came out recently. It may have been a national report, or it may have been British Columbia. It reported not just on physical education in the school, but actually talked about the physical well-being of young people, of children. There are some statistics that I can't quote but that were consistent with the point you were drawing, which is that according to the report, children seem to be getting less physical activity than they did ten or 20 years ago. I wish I could be more specific, because I'm sure you'd be interested in the report, and I think I can track it down.

I'm going to be a bit vague here. I believe the ministry of -- if someone could help me; the one that has culture and phys ed. . . .

A Voice: Small Business, Tourism and Culture.

S. Harvey: That ministry, I believe, has struck a committee to follow up on this report. It suggested that children are less physically active not just in school but in all parts of their life; hence the reason for having an interministry committee to kind of follow up and find out whether that's true and, if it's true, should there be something done about it. I hate to give you a committee as an action plan, but. . . .

V. Roddick: That's a start.

S. Harvey: I will try to find the reference, though, for the report that has some statistics about the physical well-being of kids for you.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. Val, any more questions?

[ Page 1617 ]

V. Roddick: No.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I have a couple of questions. This is to the auditor general's staff: the 19 recommendations -- have you ranked them in what you believe an order of priority?

L. Ronneseth: Not officially.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, then, could you please undertake to report back to this committee, through the Clerk's office, of course, a ranking of what you would think would be the most important, in order of priority? I think that would be useful. And then you may want to also include, further to questions by the member for Cariboo South, with respect to the cost-benefit. . . . If you could maybe give us that information as you rank them, I think that might be useful in future deliberations.

With respect to the ministry, when the ministry has reviewed these 19 recommendations. . . . Have you looked at an order of priority that you're reviewing them in? And have you set within the ministry, Shell, a time line and sort of a workplan for reviewing these 19 different recommendations?

S. Harvey: Yes. As Claudia mentioned, now that school is in session and we have regular meetings with our partner groups -- trustees, superintendents, teachers and so on -- Claudia and her colleagues are working on a very specific workplan for each of the 19 recommendations. It has a target date, a deliverable and who's responsible and who has to do what. We are consulting with our education partners on that workplan, and we've picked mid-December, I believe, as the date to have that workplan finalized.

Now, that doesn't mean we're not doing anything now. Some of the things, such as. . . . Again, Claudia has referenced the web site; we're working on that right now and hope to have it fixed and have the spirit of the recommendation around that implemented within two weeks, I think it is. So there are a number of things that we're able to get on with implementing right now, but our full, detailed workplan would be mid- to late December.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Then, just to follow up on that, when you have your detailed workplan done in mid-December, would you please send it to the Clerk's office so that it can be distributed to members of this committee so that we can have it just as a follow-up document? Obviously, through the discussion we've had here today, the members are very, very interested in this important subject.

[1110]

The other issue I have is that out of the 19 recommendations, it appears to me that ten of the recommendations affect school districts. Who is responsible for reviewing and implementing what I believe to be the ten that impact on school districts? Is it the ministry or is it the school district?

S. Harvey: The school district, I think, is responsible for doing it, but the ministry will accept responsibility for drawing it to their attention, assisting them and engaging in that discussion. But I think, for example, as one element of getting that started, we would like to invite Lynne to come to a future meeting of our Education Advisory Council, where we have all the players in the same room. I think it would be quite appropriate. I hope I'm not surprising you on this. She did an excellent presentation with them perhaps a year ago, at the early stages of the study, describing its intent, methodology and so on, and I think soliciting their support for the work that she and her colleagues were going to be doing. To answer your question, I think it would be quite appropriate, and one step would be for us to invite Lynne back to meet with them.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Excuse me, my concern -- what I hear from school districts. . . . And of course if I've been advised wrong by school districts, I would welcome you to correct that from your perspective. Implementation funded, not funded. . . . What is your going-in position with respect to the recommendations and those that you may implement? What is your going-in position with respect to: is the ministry going to be responsible for funding, or are the districts? Are there going to be some unfunded mandates flowing down on this to districts?

S. Harvey: I'm not sure I can answer your question right now. That kind of information may come to light as we struggle with and finalize our workplan. We know that in order to implement that recommendation and achieve the goal that's behind it, we would need to have this kind of activity, and this kind of activity costs so much. I don't think we're at that stage yet.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I would appreciate, then, if you could, as you're going through this and thinking about your workplan and developing your workplan. . . . I think it's an issue that has to be addressed, because what I hear from being in and travelling and around in my constituency is that the ministry has often wonderful ideas that they like to impose on us, but somehow the dollars don't flow with this imposition. I just think it's something that has to be addressed, for it's obviously something that's very, very important. If we don't address it up front, we could just be wasting a whole bunch of time down the road.

With respect to your presentation, Claudia, on the collaboration with government ministries and agencies, one of the things we often hear is that when there are so many ministries, it takes a long time to move the ball forward. Do we have a specific workplan with respect to moving the ball forward with the number of ministries that are involved?

C. Roch: Well, again, we're in early discussions and will be forming one. We certainly have a number of tables in which we work, most principally with the Ministry for Children and Families, and we have kept them apprised of this study during its development. We'll be taking this report to them and beginning to table with them some of the recommendations that speak very directly to them. So, again, the workplan is under development, with more cemented by mid-December.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So that'll be included in that, then; that would be great.

[1115]

S. Harvey: If I could add to that, Stewart made reference to the special education review. There is a healthy amount of overlap between the recommendations and the directions that are proposed in there and the recommendations that are proposed in the auditor general's report. Stewart kindly has put

[ Page 1618 ]

our feet right to the fire in terms of time lines, which I think was behind your question. The protocols that exist between the Ministry for Children and Families that guide how the services are delivered on the ground to children. . . . Those protocols were developed about seven years ago?

C. Roch: In 1989, 11 years ago now.

S. Harvey: Eleven years ago. They're badly outdated. Stewart kindly gave us the deadline of December 31 of this year to get about five of them done, and to have all of them completed by December 31 of next year. Is that correct? Yes, there are some very firm time lines for very specific deliverables in terms of how those particular ministries need to work together.

R. Thorpe (Chair): That's great.

With respect to the auditor general's report, on page 4 you talk about effective behaviour support training for 300 schools. Earlier in your report you indicated there are some 1,800 schools. Why have we reached only 16.5 percent of our schools, leaving 83 percent basically not aware?

L. Ronneseth: You're asking the ministry?

R. Thorpe (Chair): I'm asking whoever wants to answer.

C. Roch: The effective behaviour support training proposal was brought to us by the organization known as the B.C. Council of Administrators of Special Education. These are the representatives from school districts who are generally responsible for special education, school safety and interministerial work. They knew of some excellent work being undertaken, pretty systemic-wide in Oregon, that is driven by or called this effective behaviour support plan. They came to us to discuss a five-year plan that would begin to bring the conversation to British Columbia, begin to train people in its implementation. And I think it's one of the first examples we have of such a sustained effort with a partner group over the duration of five years.

As of April in this year we know that 2,400 educators have attended team-training sessions, and this is where we ask schools to bring not just a lone person to train but a team that would then go back and discuss the applicability of this model in their schools. We're doing training regionally. And the demand for that training, as the report said, is extremely high. These educators have come from 500 schools. That's the formal training that we've done.

We don't have clear evidence yet of the number of schools that then have gone back and mentored others or done some of their own legwork in their communities. We do know of a number of school districts that have designated at the board table that they will be EBS school districts. Smithers is a community that comes to mind, with a tremendous amount of work in that community underway. Nanaimo is another community that's just identified that all of their principals will have training this fall in that program, as a first way of introducing this program systemwide. We also have 200 educators trained in a more intensive way through summer institutes, with support throughout the year, and they're being asked to go back to their communities and be mentors and leaders in their community.

Five years later -- and a significant allocation of resources -- we've just had an independent evaluation of this program take place, and the report has just been delivered to us. It tells us that they looked at, I think, about 150 schools that self-identified as fully practising EBS schools, with a number of other schools identifying themselves as being in more fledgling places. The evidence from that study says that we're making a good start. We are making a critical difference in those schools.

In light of the auditor general's report that tells us to carry on here and in fact accelerate some of the training, the analysis that we've done through this review tells us that there are a number of ways we need to go at this. We need to support more schools in having their first exposure to the model, to waking them up to the possibilities of the model. As well, there seems to be very clear evidence that we need to go back to the schools that are beginning to practise this to allow them to go deeper. They're sometimes very weak on data collection. There are some elements in which they need a bit more support. They are finding the going tough when they start to deal with the 2 percent of the students who are so severely involved.

[1120]

So we have a work team working to implement that report, and again, by December they'll have best advice for us on how to respond to what the system is telling us about EBS, to reach more schools, reach more school districts and manage it within school districts so that one school might be identified as a pilot school, more regularly reporting to other schools about what's happening in their community, and helping schools that are making a really excellent start on the program to sustain them as their staff turn over and circumstances change. I think we're moving forward on EBS in quite an informed way, because this provincial study has just been completed, and it provides a lot of information to us.

R. Kasper: I guess I can speak from some degree of experience, because you've noted the Sooke school district; it's mentioned in the auditor general's report. I had attended a parent advisory council meeting where there was a release to the parents at a particular school. It was the halfway stage of the study that was done on just the whole question of violence and aggressive behaviour through the University of Victoria.

One of the things that I found fairly shocking was that when there was tracking and interviews done of the students who seemed to have higher than average or just one- or two-incident aggressive behaviours, there were discussions and interviews carried out with the parents. One of the things that really opened my eyes was that roughly 35 percent of those interviewed were students that had kind of a continuous track record of aggressive behaviour. The root of that problem was also very prevalent with the parents, and similar circumstances have occurred.

In order for that study to be done and in order for it to actually take place, there had to be a buy-in from the parents through the local PAC and also from the district and administrative staff at this one particular school. When they completed their work, both from the start and right up to '98, it's noted in the document here that there was a very marked improvement. But when I've spoken to the principals -- and there have been two separate principals there -- they said that those kinds of accomplishments can only take place if the parents choose to participate.

[ Page 1619 ]

I think that picks up on what Stewart talked about in response to some other discussions around that. Society as a whole has to be involved and accept some degree of responsibility. I'm a very firm believer that it's not just the Ministry of Education or any other ministry that is going to solve it -- or at least encourage students, regardless of their age, to accept a larger degree of responsibility for their actions. It also has to start at home.

After making those comments, I note that in the auditor general's report in regard to this that it says school districts are not properly monitoring aggressive behaviour. And it says on page 88: "Although school districts track suspension data, they do not usually record or analyze the underlying factors."

I don't think that that statement is entirely correct. In the district where my son goes to school, in the community where I'm located, there is a great deal of tracking that goes on in dealing with students who have some degree of behaviour problems. There are circumstances where students are sent home books where their behaviour is reviewed in conjunction with the parents. The parents sign the book, and that information is kept on file. In essence, it is tracked and it's watched.

[1125]

When there are severe circumstances, there are STEP programs. For example, in the school my son attends there is a three-step or three-stage program that deals with violent or, in the broader context, inappropriate behaviour at school which does not recognize or support the rights of other students to maintain a safe or free and open learning environment. It's not just violent activities; it deals with all aspects of it.

The parents are very much involved. The first week that the students go to school there's a letter sent to all the parents. It lays out very clearly what the policies of the schools are, what programs are available within the school. They also note that there are people within the school system that in fact are there to work with parents and students on a regular basis. The parents sign the fact that they've read this, and it's returned to school. So there's an automatic buy-in. Whether there's continuity of that buy-in depends on the parents and, I guess, whatever happens with the PACs.

Just from my limited analysis -- my son's in grade 2 -- I strongly believe that these programs can only work where there's strong community involvement and where there's strong community acceptance and ownership of whatever program is being partially funded or initiated in conjunction with the school district, the particular school or some other agency, because you have to have follow-up in the home. You have to ensure that there is that working relationship between the school and the parents, because when there is a problem, the vice-principal or the principal. . . .

That leads up, I guess, to the ultimate, and that's sort of the end-of-the-road kind of thing. But it starts off first with the teacher phoning the parent to talk about any kind of a problem, and also to talk with the parents. Are there any problems at home? Are there any things going on in that particular student's life or activity that may lead to something? -- and I think this is the most important part of it -- Is there any way that we can help? I have to stress "we," because it's not just the district; it's other parents and people who have accepted a buy-in and ownership of what goes on in that school collectively.

I'll just leave on this last point and then I will have one other question that I want to directly relate to the auditor general, and it deals with the cost-saving issue. It's noted on 88 that: "The savings from the resulting 40 percent reduction in district vandalism has been approximately equal to the cost of providing the extra resources." I think that's an important thing to note. That was one district with 16 schools participating in a program which in many respects was a basis for a provincewide initiative. These people took full ownership of the program, they embraced it, and they wanted to see it work. And from the principals that I've spoken to, they feel that it has worked, because they've seen a huge change in the attitude of parents and students as to what goes on in the schools.

Now my question to the auditor general's branch: how much time did you spend in the Sooke school district? Did you visit any of the schools directly and speak to the principals? You know, I raise the point where there in fact is tracking going on. I know of it. I've spoken to parents and officials in the district, and they monitor very closely what is going on with students, because their goal is to nip it in the bud. And then, are you going to do, in your follow-up report, visits back to those particular schools?

[1130]

L. Ronneseth: I think it's important to acknowledge here that your description of what's going on in Sooke is accurate. And yes, we did visit the Sooke school district, and we did go to a number of those 16 schools.

When we chose the words that you're questioning in the first part of that section, we were saying that although school districts track suspension data, they do not usually record or analyze the underlying factors. We're speaking in general here.

R. Kasper: Okay.

L. Ronneseth: Then we're going on to say some districts, however, do do it. We recognize that Sooke has the advantage of having a UVic research team with funding from Health Canada and some from the ministry to do this project, and it looks like a very promising project.

R. Kasper: So are you going to go back, you know, when you do your follow-up?

L. Ronneseth: It depends how much work we do in the follow-up. Our normal behaviour with follow-up studies is to look at what the ministry produces in the way of a report that says: "Here's what we've done."

R. Kasper: Right.

L. Ronneseth: We sample, and we may visit the Sooke school district. If we were questioning what they were telling us, we'd be more likely to visit Sooke. So it's not likely that we would go back to Sooke; we were impressed by what we found there.

R. Kasper: Could I just do one last one? You can answer this if you want, and I've sort of gone through this as much as I can. Would you generally agree that there has to be strong parent involvement in order for any type of program to work?

[ Page 1620 ]

L. Ronneseth: Yes, I think the ministry has pointed that out, and I think that we would concur with that. We wouldn't hold the ministry responsible for fixing the problems of things that go on in the homes.

R. Kasper: Right. I don't see very much mention in here of parents.

L. Ronneseth: We do have some reference in here to parent advocacy groups. The ministry is funding a parent advocacy group in Nanaimo, which has two people, I believe, who are going around the province trying to set up parent advocacy programs in each school district. But that's mostly advocacy with difficulties with the schools. In terms of parenting we also make reference to that B.C. Coalition of Parent Educators which is a relatively small group of volunteers trying to put on programs for educating parents on how to be better parents.

I think I mentioned earlier that we are aware of some of the programs in the Ministry for Children and Families for parents who have been identified as having extreme problems in parenting. So there is some funding being focused on that.

R. Kasper: Okay.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Stewart, do you want to make a few comments?

S. Ladyman: I think the member has raised an important issue here. I want to use the word "leadership." To get parents onside requires the leadership of the teacher, the school administration and the district administration. You cannot expect parents just to naturally accept it. I think what you've pointed out is a school district where the leadership team within the school and then at the district office has provided that and got the parents onside. I think that's a crucial part. As I was saying earlier, this is really a society issue; it's just not limited to the school.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Stewart.

Gary, do you have some comments?

G. Farrell-Collins: Actually, Rick was asking my questions for me, so that was great.

[1135]

C. Roch: I did want to speak to the issue of parents in two different ways. One of the critical partners that we're working with is the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils. They are an ongoing member at the table and a critical voice -- literally, the parents lens on this issue.

Our communications department, as well, has been working very closely with parents and listening to parents who tell us of their concerns about the incidence of bullying and who want information -- practical information -- in their hands. One of the handouts I gave you cited some of the material that's been produced by various ministries. There are a few that I want to describe for you here.

Certainly through our communication vehicles to families we very regularly include articles about safety, violence, new resources when they're developed, and so on. Quite recently the government produced for parents of elementary school children and parents of secondary school children parents guides to dealing with bullying, intimidation and harassment. These have been sent to all PACs in the province and are available at the end of a 1-800 Live Violence Free line. The B.C. confederation itself has just produced and published "Call It Safe." This is the parents guide for parents for dealing with intimidation and harassment in secondary schools. It gives parents practical information for working their way through a system when this occurs.

Finally, we've been doing a lot of work with parents on a number of training activities. We will be quite a presence, both the safe school centre and the ministry, at some training that the confederation is doing in a few weeks on school safety issues. These are always sold-out sessions, so we know the interest that parents have.

We know, as well, that parents are flocking to training on some very practical issues such as Internet safety. We know in our own community of the incident where a young woman, girl, was lured through the Internet and just literally saved in the nick of time from being abducted. Certainly we're trying to get practical tools into the hands of parents -- tip sheets and the like -- for safety practices in their own home, ensuring that they talk about safety, streetproofing their children in their own home, and so on. So parents are very active partners and, we know, very active consumers of the information that we're giving them.

J. Weisgerber: I think it's critically important, obviously -- the role that parents play. But what troubles me is that element in all of our communities where the family is for all intents and purposes dysfunctional. If they care, they don't know how to deal with it and, in many cases, quite honestly, are in denial -- or simply don't care. How does the system deal with those cases? It seems to me that must be the central challenge in this whole issue of safety and bullying.

C. Roch: From the perspective of the Ministry of Education, I don't feel expert in. . . .

S. Ladyman: I think, member, it goes back to the issue: what is the role of the school system, and what are our bounds? I think you can get examples around B.C. where some very caring teachers and administrators have certainly tried to help that issue. I guess in other cases it goes off to another ministry, the Ministry for Children and Families, to seek that assistance. In the aboriginal community, for instance, they're taking a very high level of concern in helping their people in the aboriginal communities. We're seeing a very definite trend by the aboriginal leaders to get their parents up to speed with various programs. So it's all over the map. I'm not so sure it should fall on just the Ministry of Education or school boards to deal with that issue.

J. Weisgerber: No, I understand that. But if you have kids that are acting up, and if there is no attempt at control on that at home and it's evident in the school, it seems to me that either we have to be prepared to do something within the education system, or else the education system has to be prepared to take a role in bringing in some other agency. The final thing is to just let it carry on to the point where the child's removed from the home or put into an institution or jailed, or something like that. But what role. . . ? Is there any work

[ Page 1621 ]

being done with the ministry to try and have an earlier response with Children and Families when kids are displaying the behaviour?

I think of a call that I had from a lady whose kids are acting up in every class. Every one of her kids is a problem. But in her eyes, she simply has a series of problem teachers who send her kids home every day. You just wonder: where does it end? Does the teacher or the principal or somebody finally say there needs to be some intervention here?

C. Roch: Well, you certainly are describing difficult circumstances. Certainly where children have behaviour disorders or behaviour issues that have been identified, the school board can identify those students to the Ministry of Education and garner additional resources to begin to wrap individual education plans around those students. One of the requirements of the individual education planner process in identifying children as having behaviour disorders is that the school offers to consult with families in the preparation of plans and in the monitoring of plans. Of course, the stories will always be more successful when parents come to the table making a contribution and with information and being a partner in some of the intervention efforts.

But of course, as you say, for a significant number of children families may in fact be at the root of the problem. The next tier of defence and intervention is school counsellors, who do a tremendous amount of work in consulting with families and directing families to other community agencies. So that's a very critical service in the schools.

[1140]

Then in the extreme, where educators or others would identify that children are placed at risk by their families' neglect and/or abuse, there is a legal requirement that everybody who has reason to believe that a child is at risk will take steps and contact a child protection social worker. So there are gradations of support and gradations of intervention. But I certainly would not sit here and claim that schools are entirely successful in engaging parents as contributing partners

J. Weisgerber: Is that a big part of the problem, or is it a relatively minor part of the overall problem in schools with bullying and unacceptable behaviour?

C. Roch: I do think we know some of the resiliency factors that will support children. Certainly a good start, well-cared-for children, well-nourished children, healthy children, children with good literacy skills -- will all contribute to the long-term resilience of children and their ultimate retention in school and success in life. So family beginnings are a critical factor. They can be overcome, certainly, with intervention programs, but it requires some pretty direct intervention to mitigate the circumstances in which children find themselves sometimes.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Are there any other questions or comments?

A. van Iersel: I've listened with great interest as a parent who has two students in high school. I've learned quite a bit today. I guess my response would be similar to what others have said. I very much appreciate the auditor general doing the report and the ministry's obvious attention to making something happen.

There was also some discussion about the school system and how it's changing. I don't know how many were able to take it in last week, but I think some of Stewart's remarks reflect back to Alvin Toffler, who talked about various organizations and how they were changing. I was surprised to learn, then, that schools were -- in his opinion, anyway -- changing at. . . . He had a range of zero to 100 miles per hour, and he said, I believe, schools were down at the five-miles-per-hour level, which surprises me. But obviously there's a bigger challenge here. I think I agree, too, with everyone saying that this is not just a school problem; this is a society issue that has to be addressed.

In terms of funding, I guess the other thing that sort of struck me was that this is such a high priority that somehow the resources have to be allocated to the most important aspects of it. Whether that means new money or a reallocation -- that's often something I have to deal with where I sit -- we'll leave to the judgment of those that are making those decisions in the ministry. But I've been quite impressed.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Does the auditor general have any closing comments?

W. Strelioff: No, we don't. Thank you very much.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Shell, do you?

S. Harvey: Just to say that we've been waving a lot of these resources around at you and pointing at them or whatever, and the Clerk has asked if we would leave this collection of materials with you. And we'd be glad to do that.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much, Shell, and you, Claudia, Rick and Stewart. And Wayne, Lynne and Errol, thank you very much. I think that you have seen that all members of the committee are very, very interested in this subject. We look forward to receiving the priorities from the auditor general and the workplan from the ministry in mid- to late December.

If the committee could maybe take a 15-minute break and reconvene here, we'll work through lunch, starting at 12 o'clock.

The committee recessed from 11:45 p.m. to 12:14 p.m.

[R. Thorpe in the chair.]

R. Thorpe (Chair): We can get started. Evelyn, you requested that we amend the agenda?

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): That's right, to move the discussion of the estimates process report on first.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Anybody have a problem with that?

G. Farrell-Collins: Does the staff have a problem with that? I guess we should ask them. You're all set? Okay.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So everybody's here? Kelly, do you want to start us off here?

[1215]

[ Page 1622 ]

K. Dunsdon: Yes, thanks. First of all, I guess I should ask if everyone has a copy of the report. It was handed out yesterday after we discussed it later in the meeting. If you don't, I have extra copies over here.

Just to review, this report was reviewed at the committee's meeting on February 16. At that meeting there were concerns expressed by some members about a section of the report that outlines written questions submitted by some committee members to the auditor general and his responses to those questions. Some members felt that because the questions and responses formed part of the Hansard for June 22, 1999, they should not be identified separately in the committee's report. The outcome of the February 16 meeting was that members would take the report away, think about its format and its content, and reconsider it in the spring.

At the April 18 meeting this past year, the committee decided to postpone further consideration of the report until the resolution of some litigation surrounding the issue. However, I was directed to include more information in the draft report related to the government's response to the report. So if you'll just flip to pages 19, 20 and 21, you'll see that I've included some more information there about the budget process review panel. There's also some information about the panel's recommendations in appendix 2 to the report. In the conclusion of the report on page 22, I've just noted some more up-to-date information just mentioning Bill 2, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act.

At the February 16 meeting I was also directed to include some more information in the draft report about B.C.'s record in terms of revenue forecasting. The draft report now contains more information about how B.C. does compared with other provinces in Canada on that topic. You'll see at pages 9 and 10 of the report that there is a brief reference to that and to, I believe it was, a 2 percent. . . . Just a minute; sorry. Anyway, at pages 9 and 10 there is a reference to that. I believe that was something that was raised by Mr. Orcherton at the last meeting, so I've specifically included some more information about that.

Finally, I just want to mention the draft recommendations. You'll see on page 23 that there had been a recommendation asking the budget process review panel to re-attend before the committee to discuss the results of the review. That draft recommendation has been removed; however, some members may feel that they would still like to hear back from the panel on the process they used to engage in their review. I also want to point out that on page 23 you'll see the other draft recommendation. This was the result of a motion made by Mr. Kasper. You'll see that at the end of that draft recommendation there was a phrase that the recommendation was subject to any recommendations to be made in the future by the budget process review panel. Since those recommendations have now been made, I have struck out that part of the recommendation.

R. Kasper: I'll move that the committee adopt the report as submitted.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I hear your motion, Rick. One of the things that. . . . I didn't know we had moved quite that quickly. We don't usually move that quickly, so this is encouraging.

One of the things that I wanted to throw out for discussion, if I could, was perhaps another recommendation, prior to accepting your motion. There have now been reports issued by the minister and the auditor general with respect to the implementation of the status on the Enns report and the budget transparency. The other recommendation that I thought I would like to throw out for discussion after those reports have been made public -- and they have now been made public -- is that this committee have the opportunity, should it wish, to call those groups, including the panel, the auditor general and/or the Ministry of Finance, just to brief us on the updating. That is a recommendation that I was going to put in.

[1220]

D. Zirnhelt: I'd like to speak to it. I haven't received that report from the auditor general, and I don't know where it's stuck in my mail. I haven't even received the press release, so I haven't read it. But I'd like to read it before committee gets into a discussion about whether it's necessary to bring in people. Maybe we're splitting hairs. I'm prepared to consider it at our next meeting, but we're now talking about adding to a workload that I understand we're struggling under. I'm not prepared at this point to say to call back witnesses. I'd like to read the report.

G. Farrell-Collins: Actually, I'm going to side with Dave on that one. With all due respect, I think that we've gone through this. The panel's there; the legislation is there. The auditor general's monitoring it. Personally, I don't think that. . . . While it might be interesting and there might be some value in it, I'm not sure that we want to add that. I think we have to start, in this committee, to end things. I think sometimes we sort of add layers like plywood. Reports keep coming back and get cycled through, rather than dealing with our business, ending it and passing on and letting things run their course.

Unless somebody wants to convince me that there'll be some really good merit in that, my sense is that the recommendations are moving along. I think we may disagree on how quickly they're moving along or on the contents or the government's reaction to some of the recommendations or willingness to implement them at all. But I don't know that we need to put something else on our agenda somewhere down the line. I think we should just deal with it and move on. That's my sense.

R. Thorpe (Chair): If that's the wish of the committee. . . . I'm surprised, though, that committee members haven't received it.

D. Zirnhelt: I can't say why, but I just. . . .

R. Thorpe (Chair): It is on the Web also, I believe.

G. Farrell-Collins: Can I just say this? In my time on the committee -- I've only been on here about a year and a bit, I think -- that seems to be a recurrent problem for different members of the government side: getting the reports. I don't know if you guys want to go back and find out what the snag is, but. . . .

D. Zirnhelt: I will.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think it would just be helpful to the committee, because it's often a problem that members say

[ Page 1623 ]

they haven't got the agendas, either from the Clerks or. . . . Other information comes from the auditor general. Maybe there might be some snag in your mail-receiving system. It seems to be a recurrent problem.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): I think it might be fair to say that all members are having some difficulty with this. We had a broad discussion about that at the end of yesterday's meeting.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Let me just be very, very clear here. The report I am talking about is not the responsibility of this committee. The government issued a report on September 28 which I would hope that government members received. The following day, on Friday the 29th, I believe, the auditor general released his report. Now, I know I got one in my office here, and I know I got one in my office in Penticton.

G. Farrell-Collins: I got one within minutes.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I don't know where the breakdown is with respect to the auditor general's report. Perhaps, Wayne, you could check with your office to make sure all members of the committee are getting copies of your reports (1) here in Victoria and (2) at their constituency offices.

G. Farrell-Collins: I suspect that is happening already.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Maybe it's in the piles; I don't know.

Anyhow, Mr. Kasper had a motion on the floor.

R. Kasper: Yes, that we adopt the report and recommend same to the Legislative Assembly.

Motion approved.

[1225]

R. Thorpe (Chair): Let's do the silviculture program now, and then one of our members. . . . You're going to stay for both if you can, aren't you, Dave?

D. Zirnhelt: Yeah. It's time; I have to get a plane.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. We'll start with this report. Kelly has pointed out to me, just for those who are going to say something, that at the bottom of this report it should say "Silviculture Program", not "Planning and Accountability." Kelly had pointed that out to me, and that's being corrected.

K. Dunsdon: What you have before you today is part 2 of a larger report dealing with the audit of Forest Renewal B.C. Part 1 was considered yesterday, dealing with planning and accountability in the corporation. This part deals with FRBC's silviculture programs.

As we talked about yesterday, the report covers work done by the committee in February of this year. At that time, the committee heard from FRBC representatives of the auditor general's office and the Ministry of Forests. The report also includes information sent later to the committee in response to questions that came up during the committee's deliberations.

The auditor general made 21 recommendations to FRBC regarding its silviculture programs. I have organized the silviculture part of this report generally according to seven main areas where recommendations were made. Those are strategic direction; identification of objectives; information-gathering to support investment decisions; direction regarding work being funded by FRBC; the cost of purchasing services; contract management; and monitoring outputs, short-term impacts and long-term outcomes. Just like yesterday, the draft report does not contain any recommendations yet, and I look forward to comments about draft recommendations.

Just to go through the report now, the introduction is on page 1, of course. The introduction provides a bit of a background on what silviculture involves and FRBC's role in the silviculture programs and a bit of the history as to how they came to be responsible for those. Pages 2 and 3 discuss the auditor general's and the committee's review and the scope of the audit, including discussions the committee had about what areas they had concerns about that the audit didn't cover and about the timing of the auditor general's report.

Starting on page 4 of the report is the section about strategic direction. This is the section dealing with the auditor general's recommendation for a provincial silviculture strategy and how FRBC has addressed this recommendation by providing funding for the preparation of a silviculture strategy for the province, which was released in 1999. There is also discussion of how silviculture strategies are being developed at a more local level, or forest district or timber supply area level. FRBC considers the auditor general's recommendation on this topic to be completed.

The next section of the report is the part dealing with identification of objectives, and that starts on page 6 of the report, where there is a discussion of the extent to which FRBC has identified objectives for the programs. This section talks about resource objectives, economic and financial objectives, short-term and long-term job creation objectives, and the balance between social and resource objectives.

The discussion of resource objectives on page 6 notes that it was determined during the audit that FRBC, in its business planning, needed to identify those resource objectives related to enhancing the productive capacity of forest lands. Response to this recommendation is considered by FRBC, according to the workplan that they submitted to us, to be in progress, as they're currently in the process of completing local silviculture strategies for timber supply areas and forest districts throughout the province, which I think are scheduled to be completed by 2001.

[1230]

Pages 6 and 7 of the report talk about economic and financial objectives. There's also a brief discussion there about the timeliness of the work to address those issues in reference to the work of the Select Standing Committee on Forests, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources on this issue. FRBC has stated that the auditor general's recommendation in this area is still in progress.

Short-term and long-term job creation objectives are discussed, starting on page 7 of the draft report. This section focuses on the sustainability of jobs funded through FRBC's silviculture programs and the way job objectives have focused on the creation of short-term rather than long-term jobs, which was a theme of the auditor general's report. FRBC believes this recommendation to be substantially implemented as a result of work being done with Statistics Canada and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[ Page 1624 ]

Page 8 of the report discusses the need to balance social and resource objectives, to provide more guidance to industry and the Ministry of Forests, who deliver the programs. The corporations new investment planning principles in its 2000-2001 business plan are described here. FRBC has advised that they consider these principles to meet the auditor general's concerns, so they consider this recommendation to be substantially implemented.

Information-gathering to support investment decisions is the next section of the report, starting on page 9. This section talks about research needs and using available information to guide investment decision-making. In particular it talks about the debate in the forest sector in B.C. and elsewhere about the efficacy of various silviculture treatments. FRBC has advised that implementation of the auditor general's two recommendations in this area is in progress.

Now, direction regarding work funded by FRBC is talked about on pages 11 to 16 of the report. This section focuses really on six main areas. Those are financial, economic and resource quality criteria that proponents are expected to apply when they are considering potential projects; allocation of funding for silviculture programs based on an understanding of unique regional needs; funding forest health activities; qualitative and quantitative analysis in planning; backlog program funding; and balancing short-term and long-term job creation.

All of the recommendations made by the auditor general in these areas are considered by FRBC to be in progress. I should point out that the exception is the recommendation that FRBC ensure that funding of forest health activities is based on an adequate assessment of provincial forest health requirements, because during the meetings, FRBC took the position that investments in forest health activities are generally viewed as being outside their area of responsibility, except where they contribute to the strategic objective of sustainable harvest. When the committee discussed the issue, representatives of the auditor general's office submitted that FRBC has been directed, according to the forest renewal plan, to keep B.C.'s forests healthy. So I believe this is an area where further discussion may be taking place between those two offices.

The next section is dealing with the cost of purchasing services, starting on page 17. This talks about how the costs FRBC has incurred in funding its silviculture activities have compared to historical costs when those programs were delivered primarily through the Ministry of Forests and industry. In particular, the committee talked about how the corporation has gone about assuring that it is getting value for money and how it has established what is an acceptable range of costs. Included in this discussion is a reference to FRBC's pilot project. They're doing 14 performance audits of major proponents. FRBC considers that the recommendations in this area are still underway.

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Contract management is dealt with on pages 20 and 21 of the draft report. The committee looked at whether FRBC should ensure that the acceptable limits regarding the quality of resource benefits being purchased should be included in contracts, to create a contractual obligation. There was also a discussion of the level of quality assurance inspections that are carried out by the Ministry of Forests for FRBC. That's on page 21 of the report.

The last section of the report is that dealing with output short-term impacts and long-term impacts. So starting on page 22 there's a discussion about how the corporation has been monitoring the impacts of incremental silviculture activities and how it uses available tools to analyze the financial and economic implications of silviculture investment decisions. There's also a discussion of FRBC's 1996 corporate evaluation plan and how it's being enhanced and updated to meet the concerns identified by the auditor general. FRBC considers these recommendations to be in progress.

The section also deals with the way the corporation has reported on job creation and the impact of its programs on future traditional forest sector jobs. These are harvesting and processing jobs. A discussion of this is found on page 23 of the report. FRBC has advised us in their workplan that they consider this area, this recommendation, to be substantially implemented, based on work that they've done to improve their ability to report on job creation.

On page 25 the conclusion just notes that FRBC witnesses expressed general agreement with the conclusions of the audit, which they did many times throughout the discussions, and are working towards meeting the recommendations. It also makes note of the follow-up review of FRBC that's currently underway.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you very much, Kelly.

Does the auditor general's office -- Wayne or Morris -- have any comments on this draft report?

M. Sydor: I feel comfortable with this draft report. I think it captures our assessments and the discussions that were held in early February quite well. I think Kelly has done a very good job on both reports -- the one yesterday and the one today. Except for minor editing changes and such, I really didn't have any substantive comments for her.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. Wayne, any comments? No? That's good. Comptroller general -- Arn?

A. van Iersel: I've read it, and that would be the same for me.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I just have one question. In the conclusion, just as a point of information, where do you stand in your follow-up?

M. Sydor: That's in process. We actually received the material from Forest Renewal right at the end of August, beginning of September. We weren't able to devote resources to it right away, but we do have two staff -- the two staff who were involved in carrying out the work -- looking at it. As I indicated yesterday, we will be finished that before the end of the month.

R. Thorpe (Chair): At this point in time this report does not have recommendations, so does anyone -- committee members -- have a motion, or what they'd like to bring forward as recommendations for this report?

D. Zirnhelt: I guess I'd like to know what the response is. I'm new here. At some point we refer this to the agencies for their response to the report. Has that been done? We had discussion around one report yesterday. Yeah, I guess that's

[ Page 1625 ]

your job. Has that been done, and do we have a response? And would we see something coming out of the report the auditor general has received from FRBC on the follow-up?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, as part of our regular follow-up, we will get something from the auditor general on that in due course. With respect to feedback from FRBC, Arn, over to you.

A. van Iersel: It did go over to them electronically, but that was yesterday afternoon. So I asked for an urgent response. I only received it on Thursday. I haven't received anything; I checked at noon. I'll follow up again. My recommendation would be that if there's anything substantive, I would bring it back to the Chair's attention and to Kelly. But nothing has come back from the agency just yet.

D. Zirnhelt: In less than 24 hours.

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A. van Iersel: In less than 24 hours.

If I could, Chair, there's a practice question I would like clarification on. As you know, I have been sending this on your behalf to the agencies to get their feedback. Previously, I had waited until there were recommendations, because that's one of the areas where they are most interested, and much of the material repeats what's in the auditor general's. . . . Particularly the recommendations are again reflected in here.

But in the past we've waited until this committee's recommendations are included, particularly where there are extra ones or new ones that they would look at. I could continue to do what I've now started to do, which is send the early draft to the agency; that wouldn't have the recommendations. But then I may again feel compelled, on your behalf again, to send it after. So I need some clarification as to how often you want me to send these things to them and when I should do it.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, I stand to be corrected by the committee members, but we could be in a tennis match here forever. To date, our practice has been. . . . We haven't had many really earth-shaking additional recommendations other than semi-annual reviews and updates -- that kind of thing. So we've been back and forth on this issue: should we have the recommendations brought forward by staff and included in a draft, or should the committee wait and do them? So you know, really, it is the will of the committee. Does anyone have any recommendations to this report other than to endorse the auditor general's recommendations at this point in time?

R. Kasper: Keep their feet to the fire.

G. Farrell-Collins: Well, then, Mr. Chairman, in light of the comments of the comptroller general -- and I look to hear from the auditor general's too -- that our report isn't much different from what has already been out there and that we're merely endorsing the recommendations that were put forward in the auditor general's report, I don't feel there's a need from the committee (a) for further recommendations and (b) to extend the process. I think we should just move approval and adoption of the report and get on with it.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Are you making that motion now?

G. Farrell-Collins: Sure. I'll make it.

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Would we add, then, a single recommendation that says that this committee endorses the recommendations of the office of the auditor general?

R. Thorpe (Chair): That is correct.

R. Kasper: And that we look forward to the follow-up report.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay.

D. Zirnhelt: I have a bit of a problem with some of it, in that there's a different understanding in here than what I had. I spent some considerable time with it. I would like to see response to the text from the agency, because there are some conclusions in there that I'm not sure that I share, from what I've heard previously from the agency.

I haven't had the chance to go back, you know, because we've only had this a short period of time. I haven't had a chance to go back through the record to do my own checking, and there's no one here to ask, so. . . . I don't have a general problem with the thrust of the recommendation. In the rephrasing of some of the findings, there are some of them that I don't feel particularly comfortable with. I'd like to see the agency's response.

R. Thorpe (Chair): This report No. 6 of the year 1999-2000 -- and realizing, David, you haven't been on the committee for that long. . . . In this report it does actually have the response from FRBC to all of the auditor general's positions, and with respect to the silviculture program, that would be found on page 180 of this report.

Since this committee is now endorsing the work of the auditor general, I think it would be a fair assessment that we're not going to get some earth-shattering response back, at this point in time, from FRBC. And of course the regular follow-up process is going to take place, which is going to be concluded shortly, and this committee will be advised of any problems or opportunities that exist. So I think we should just move forward, if that motion is on the floor.

G. Farrell-Collins: Yeah. I want to give David some reassurance. We don't want to stop anybody from giving us any comments that they want to give us, and as the Chair said, this has been out there for a long time. That's why I asked whether it was the opinion of the comptroller general and the auditor general that our report reflected pretty much what was there anyway -- no real deviation from their thoughts. And if that was the case, then there's certainly nothing earth-shattering in it. There may be differences in wording or something, but nothing earth-shattering that FRBC is going to necessarily come clamouring back with major overhaul of our report. As the Chair said, there is an opportunity for a follow-up process. I mean, I made the motion before; I'm glad to make it again and see what people think.

Motion approved unanimously.

R. Thorpe (Chair): We'll do the FRBC planning and accountability now.

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[ Page 1626 ]

K. Dunsdon: Yesterday when we were reviewing the planning and accountability part of the FRBC report, there was some discussion and some motions made about recommendations in addition to those made by the auditor general. I was told to go away and work with Craig -- but to come back -- to draft some recommendations on those topics. What I'll do now is just run through those with you.

The first one was with respect to the tabling of the FRBC annual report. I'll just read out the draft recommendation that we've drafted and get your comment on it. That reads: "Your committee recommends that the Minister of Forests table Forest Renewal B.C.'s annual business plan in the House on a more timely basis and, when the House is not sitting, for the Minister of Forests to deposit a copy of the annual business plan with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, enabling the appropriate legislative committee to begin its review."

The second draft recommendation was about the orders-in-council and accountability reporting on those. The recommendation I've drafted on that topic reads as follows: "Your committee recommends that Forest Renewal B.C. ensure that its annual report contains accountability information relating to orders-in-council that have resulted in courses of action or expenditures not identified in the corporation's business plan." I think Mr. Kasper's concern was not so much to include information about every order-in-council but just ones that have caused some sort of a different course of action. . . .

R. Kasper: An adjustment.

K. Dunsdon: Yeah, not any willy-nilly order-in-council, I think it was.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I don't think you should put willy-nilly, maybe, in the. . . . Maybe you should; I don't know. What do you think, Mr. Kasper?

R. Kasper: Maybe we'll leave it at that.

R. Thorpe (Chair): So is everyone in favour of those. . . ?

R. Kasper: Okay. I'll move the draft recommendations be included in our report.

Motion approved.

K. Dunsdon: Okay. I should point out, as well, the 19 recommendations relating to the planning and accountability part of the audit. I think you may need a motion to adopt a recommendation on those as well.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I'm sure we can get a member to do that. Thank you, Mr. Coell. You were going to make that, Murray?

R. Kasper: Yeah, Murray did that.

Motion approved.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Is that it?

R. Kasper: Do we have more reports?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Reports are on their way.

What I thought we could do for five minutes or so, since the meetings of October 17 and 18 have been cancelled, is get some agreement here now on what we're going to do on November 7 and 8. Is everyone in agreement that we take a few minutes and do that?

What was scheduled for October 17 was the 1999-2000 annual report of the auditor general in the morning and then later a draft report on pulp and paper mill effluent monitoring. Then the next day the Financial Institutions Act, monitoring of credit unions and trust companies, was scheduled. Is it going to be released by then? Has that been released yet? It says: "To be released October 2000." Has it been released yet?

M. Sydor: I don't think so, no.

R. Thorpe (Chair): When will it be released?

W. Strelioff: It won't be released in time for November 7 and 8 meetings.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay, so that's off. Good thing we're doing this.

The other item that we were to discuss on that date was the review of the fast ferry program, so we'll move that to November 7. Is everybody okay with that?

Then what we had for November 7 was a follow-up on protecting drinking water. Is everyone okay with that?

E. Gillespie (Deputy Chair): Is that on the committee report?

R. Kasper: Yeah, it will be the committee report.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Yes, but we have witnesses -- the auditor general, the provincial health officer. Have we been able to confirm?

K. Dunsdon: Somebody from the North Okanagan water authority has expressed an interest in coming as well.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Has the deputy health officer confirmed?

K. Dunsdon: Yes, he has.

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R. Thorpe (Chair): Then what we had was government and financial accountability for 1998-99, parts 3 and 4, and it's to be released October 2000. Has that been released?

W. Strelioff: This is '99-2000 you're talking about, I think.

R. Thorpe (Chair): It says '98-99 here.

K. Dunsdon: Parts 3 and 4.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Parts 3 and 4. It looks like the auditor general's staff will advise the Clerk's office on that one.

Then we were going to look at draft reports of Y2K final report, British Columbia Ferry Corporation follow-up of fleet and terminal, and standards of conduct in education and health sectors. Kelly, are we expecting a bit of follow-up there?

[ Page 1627 ]

All of those things that we've talked about, draft reports, etc. -- can we have that stuff ready for November 7 and 8 to get through it all? Is that your goal?

K. Dunsdon: Are you proposing to incorporate all of the October 17 and 18 items into those two days as well?

R. Thorpe (Chair): Yes. That's what we originally talked about -- trying to pick it up.

K. Dunsdon: And there's the draft report that we're not doing today. It may be a bit much.

R. Thorpe (Chair): Unless other committee members would oppose this, I would rather set an ambitious agenda, given that time is of the essence. And noticing the progress we made today, we could have plowed through some additional stuff. So maybe if we have a heavy workload, we can get through.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think there are. . . . We should try and do the stuff that was cancelled first, where that's possible, and then try and fill in the rest of the time with whatever's next on the agenda. It sounds like a couple of items have dropped off the tentative agenda anyway. So I think that within the ability of staff to have those sorts of things ready in time, we should try and see what we can accomplish. We made some good progress this afternoon, and perhaps we can keep up the momentum.

S. Orcherton: I agree, with one added comment that if we do make progress like we have over the last two days, maybe we could, say, set our agenda full for the first day in November and then let the people who would be scheduled for the second day in November know that there may be an opportunity, if we move through things quicker, if they could try and make themselves available, if possible, on short notice to be there for. . . . So if we do move forward, we could have somebody in the wings, so that we could make a phone call and say: "Look, it looks like we've got an extra two hours. Instead of coming tomorrow morning, can you come this afternoon?" If that's possible. . . .

R. Thorpe (Chair): I don't know. Arn and the Clerk's office look for those logistics.

A. van Iersel: We could attempt to do that, Chair. It obviously depends on where the people are coming from and what commitments they have at this point. But it's possible to try. The other request I would have, in terms of what's happened in the last two days, is if we could get the versions of the draft reports out about a week in advance. That would allow me to make sure that we get timely responses from these folks.

R. Thorpe (Chair): I think that's good. And then Kelly's going to have a couple of extra days to work on drafts, since we're not meeting on the 17th and 18th, and I know she's looking forward to that. But the other thing that we can do is, especially where we have to have people that have to travel, as Arn just said. . . . We should lock them in on the schedule. As the committee, we can work through lunch, etc., and handle draft reports at that point in time, but let's not inconvenience people that have to travel from different parts of the province. We can move around dealing with draft reports, etc., as a committee. I think that would be a good way to approach it, if everybody agrees.

G. Farrell-Collins: It saves a lot of money in travel costs, too, if they don't have to do it at the last minute.

R. Kasper: I have a suggestion. Is it possible for the Chair and the Deputy Chair to review the draft reports prior to them being sent out? Perhaps that might save some time. Maybe they could reach some consensus.

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R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, quite frankly, the draft reports are the responsibility of all committee members, and I think draft reports. . . . Kelly will undertake to get them out to both your legislative office and your constituency office as soon as she possibly can and in as advance time as she possibly can, but it's up to individual members to get the feedback back to Kelly. And I have to tell you that as a committee, our response back to staff has been terrible -- terrible. So it can make our life a lot easier, and it can make Kelly's life a lot easier -- and the rest of the staff that have to juggle things around -- if we can all just make that commitment. It doesn't take that much time, if you put your mind to it, to read these reports.

The committee adjourned at 12:56 p.m.

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