***Update November 26, 2024***
The VSB trustees voted 4-3-2 to discontinue IB MYP at King George/Lord Roberts/Elsie Roy group of schools. The discussion and debate can be seen here (20+ minutes)

The following trustees voted to close IB MYP:
Victoria Jung (Chair, unaffiliated)
Janet Fraser (Green Party)
Lois Chan-Pedley (Green Party)
Christopher Richardson (Independent)

This petition is forever thankful to the following trustees who voted against the motion to close IB MYP. These trustees took the time to listen, research, and respond. Thank you:
Suzie Mah (COPE)
Jennifer Reddy (OneCity)
Preeti Faridkot (ABC Vancouver)

The Ministry of Education in British Columbia has several directives to promote accountability, transparency, and choice in the school system. If you feel the VSB “engagement” report misrepresented your view, or if the <72 hours offered to parents/trustees to review the final report/recommendation and vote was unfair, please contact the BC Minister and/or Deputy Minister of Education at: ECC.Minister@gov.bc.ca, DM.Education@gov.bc.ca or (604)660-2421

Or the provincial representatives for these schools at:
Spencer Chandra Herbert (Vancouver-West End, NDP) s.chandraherbert.mla@leg.bc.ca
Terry Yung (Vancouver-Yaletown, NDP) terry.yung@bcndp.ca

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On Monday, November 25, 2024 the Vancouver School Board (VSB) will vote on discontinuing the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program (MYP) currently running at King George, Lord Roberts, and Elsie Roy.

The TL;DR version: VSB failed to properly budget and implement IB best practices. VSB is quietly attempting to discontinue the IB MYP and penalize our children.

The IB MYP was introduced into the group of public West End/Yaletown schools in the early 2000s. IB is a non-profit organization based in Switzerland that works to enhance learning outcomes through continuous training, collaboration, school management policies, curriculum and accountability through certification. In fact, BC's own curriculum updates in 2016 were modeled after the IB MYP framework.

The King George/Lord Roberts/Elsie Roy group of schools is the only public IB Middle Years Program within the district. However, the IB MYP is successfully run at 9 public schools in Ontario, as well as in several neighboring BC public school districts, including Maple Ridge, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey, and Port Coquitlam. In total, there are over 5,500 (and growing) both public and private IB schools worldwide.

The School Act of BC requires districts to anticipate and budget for each school. VSB trustees and superintendent recently touted a balanced budget for the current year but neglected known shortcomings in IB training requirements and teacher collaboration time required to uphold the IB accreditation.

In 2018 and again in 2024, the International Baccalaureate evaluation noted deficiencies in the KG/LR/ER MYP regarding staff training, policies, curriculum, program development, and scheduling. VSB failed to act. These reports were not promptly provided to stakeholders in a transparent and actionable manner. Instead, they were withheld and presented to parents less than 12 days prior to a rushed VSB trustee vote to discontinue IB MYP participation.

The 9 elected VSB trustees have a mandate to ensure a quality education; they are:

Victoria Jung, Chair (ABC Vancouver/resigned) victoria.jung@vsb.bc.ca
Alfred Chien (ABC Vancouver) alfred@abcvancouver.ca
Josh Zhang (ABC Vancouver) joshua.zhang@vsb.bc.ca
Christopher JK Richardson (Independent) Christopher.Richardson@vsb.bc.ca
Preeti Faridkot (ABC Vancouver) preeti@abcvancouver.ca
Jennifer Reddy (OneCity) jennifer.reddy@vsb.bc.ca
Suzie Mah (COPE) suzie.mah@vsb.bc.ca
Lois Chan-Pedley (Green) lois.chan-pedley@vsb.bc.ca
Janet Fraser (Green) janet.fraser@vsb.bc.ca

Please join downtown core families in urging them to vote to

Maintain MYP (at King George/Lord Roberts/Elsie Roy group of schools) and invest up to $286,040 for annual staff training, policy updates and regular policy reviews, collaboration time, and recruitment efforts.
 

Peer reviewed, independent research on improved learning outcomes for students who participate in IB MYPs can be found at https://www.ibo.org/research

VSB Public Relations/Engagement summarized MYP evaluation report can be found at https://www.vsb.bc.ca/page/77217/evaluation-results