Published: The Global Canadian (pdf)
December 1, 2018
549 words
The newly elected North Vancouver School Board has voted to approve a new process for handling parent complaints about School Board employees, processes, and materials, but after a lengthy discussion decided to continue the District’s policy of not accepting anonymous complaints.
The updated Policy 406 is the result of work done through 2017 by a
committee of parents, educators, and administrators, and aims to
provide more clarity for parents while protecting complainants from
retribution.
Director of Instruction Arlene Martin explained that the new Policy
removes the word “complaint” from its title and replaces it with
“concerns” and was intended to include a “problem solving
orientation.” Including parents and students in the language of
the policy was considered important.
Under the new policy a parent concern will be handled through a five
stage process, with the goal being to handle concerns as “near to
the source as possible.”
Parents will be expected to begin by presenting their concern to the
teacher or employee involved. According to Martin the goal is to
provide a response to parents within five days. If the parent isn’t
happy with the result they can escalate the complaint to the
Principal of the school, then to the Director of Instruction for
their family of schools. From there they can submit a written
complaint to the Assistant Superintendent, then to the
Superintendent.
If all of these fail to satisfy the parent or student, and if the
concern “affects the education, health, or safety” of a student,
parents can give a written Notice of Appeal to the Board of
Education.
Trustee Cyndy Gerlach asked why the new policy specifically rules out
anonymous complaints. Gerlach said “I struggle with this. As a
school district we have a whistle-blower line. Any employee can make
an anonymous compliant at any time. So why is the same affordability
not provided to parents?”
Martin explained that this was discussed at length during several
meetings before it was decided to retain that sentence. The
committee members felt that the risk of damage that could be caused
by unfounded anonymous complaints was sufficient to exclude them.
Instead they adopted language to explicitly protect students and
parents from retribution.
Gerlach asked why the school district would not allow anonymous
complaints when it is possible to file an a anonymous complaint with
the Ministry of Children and Family when there is a suspicion of
child abuse.
She is concerned that some parents will not make a complaint if they
cannot do it anonymously, and that the five step process would lock
parents into dealing with problem teachers before being allowed to
escalate complaints.
Gerlach felt that “there are some times when the breakdown is so
significant that (parents) can’t talk to the teacher” and worries
that that the Principal could refuse to escalate the complaint if
parents refuse to talk to the teacher.
Trustee Megan Higgins admitted to having trouble imagining a
situation where an anonymous complaint could be made given that any
complaint would be about a student situation, and Trustee Mary Tasi
Baker clarified that while Social Services may maintain
confidentiality when accepting child related complaints, it was not
an anonymous process. District staff assured the Board that parents
always have the option of entering the complaints process at the
point that is most comfortable.