B.C. Education Minister fires Victoria school board over ban on police program

British Columbia has fired the entire board of the Great Victoria School District after almost two years of controversy over the board’s decision to end the police liaison officer program in its schools.

Sherri Bell, a former superintendent of schools in Victoria, has been appointed as the lone trustee to replace the board until the municipal elections next year.

Education Minister Lisa Beare said on Thursday that this was not a decision she took lightly. “It has become clear to me that the board has lost the trust of many to govern in the public interest.”

In 2023, the board opted to end the police liaison officer program, saying that the presence of police officers in schools could cause discomfort for Black and Indigenous students. Similar concerns have seen some boards across the country cancel their police liaison programs in recent years, although some, including the Vancouver School Board, have since voted to reinstate them.

Ms. Beare said her decision was made to ensure students feel safe in school.

“Over the last few years, the Greater Victoria School District has seen an alarming increase in safety concerns and gang activities in schools,” she said.

The district operates 28 elementary schools, 10 middle schools and seven secondary schools for approximately 20,000 students.

The Victoria board’s decision to end the program has been criticized by community groups and both the Songhees Nation and the Esquimalt Nation, who objected to what they said in a letter to the minister was a lack of “meaningful consultation” from the board.

Nicole Duncan, the chair of the fired board, could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

In September, the Education Ministry ordered the board to create a safety plan in consultation with regional policing partners.

The plan it submitted in November was rejected, with Ms. Beare saying it did not do enough to address rising student-to-student violence and reports of gang activity in schools.

The ministry appointed a special adviser to work with the board to create a new plan.

Ms. Beare threatened in December to fire the board if it did not submit a new plan by Jan. 6.

The board put forward three alternate plans by the deadline, but they were not deemed to be satisfactory.

“Our government has given this board multiple opportunities to act, and they have not delivered,” Ms. Beare said

Victoria Police Chief Del Manak praised the decision on Thursday.

“We have been expressing our concern about safety in schools for more than two years, and look forward to working with the appointed trustee, and eventually a newly elected board, on a collaborative way forward that meets the needs of our community while keeping students safe,” he said.

Carolyn Howe, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association, called the minister’s decision “troubling.”

“To have an elected board of trustees, a locally elected governing body, removed for exercising its rightful authority under the School Act raises huge concerns,” she said.

Charles Ungerleider, a former deputy minister of education, said that no minister wants to fire a school board.

“It’s a carefully considered decision and typically only made when the minister and those who are advising her believe that the board cannot be brought around to do what they’re supposed to be doing,” he said.

The decision to fire the board is “long overdue,” Lynne Block, the B.C. Conservatives’ critic for education, said in a statement.

“This has been a long saga of a rogue board ignoring the wishes of parents and rightsholders who became increasingly concerned about school safety in Greater Victoria,” she said.

Ms. Beare said she expects there will be a “proactive relationship with police in schools” that will be a “trauma-informed approach to ensure that all students feel safe.”

But the head of a national campaign to keep police out of schools says Thursday’s decision will not make students safer.

There’s no evidence to support the notion that these programs make educational spaces safer. There is, however, ample evidence of the detrimental, negative impacts of police in schools,” said Andrea Vásquez Jiménez, director of Policing-Free Schools.

Lori Poppe, who helps co-ordinate the group Parents and Police Together, said that while it is unfortunate that the years-long controversy has had to result in the board being fired, she and the more than 2,000 members of her group will be happy to see some modified version of the police liaison program return to schools.

“The parents, especially the parent victims, have reached out to me, and they’re like, ‘We’ve finally been heard,’” she says. “And what better outcome could there be than that?”