Dear Editor,
Re: “Parents upset with SOGI result run for trustee,” Our Feature, July 5.
As a parent with children in elementary school in Richmond, I wanted to respond to Mr. Pak’s assertion that it’s “the school board’s responsibility to ensure that parents were informed.” It’s not. It’s our responsibility as parents to ensure that we are informed. The board can only make the information available and answer questions that may arise.
Just speaking for myself, I know that discussions around the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) policy have been ongoing for well over a year. In addition to the PAC at my children’s school, I am involved in the Richmond District Parents Association, which is open to all Richmond parents and guardians.
Discussions about a potential, separate SOGI policy were initially raised at the January 2017 RDPA meeting. At the next meeting, RDPA invited students from Steveston-London to speak to the parents so we could understand their experiences and what they wanted.
In June 2017, a working group, including parent representatives from RDPA, started to draft a separate SOGI policy. They presented the draft at the April 11, 2018 school board meeting. After that meeting public feedback on the draft was solicited in multiple ways. These are just the ones that I’m personally aware of:
• Information sessions were held at Palmer Secondary on April 24 and on May 5;
• Let’s Talk Website (LetsTalksd38.ca) made available the draft policy as well as the administrative guidelines and management regulations (in English and Chinese) for online feedback from April 12 to June 4, 2018;
• The district’s and RPDA’s Facebook pages invited feedback and referenced the Let’s Talk Website;
• Several articles in the Richmond News about the topic included the call for feedback;
• As secretary for my PAC, I sent out an email about the draft policy and feedback request;
• The principal and VP at my school addressed concerns and answered questions at our May PAC meeting;
• Trustee Hamaguchi addressed concerns and answered questions at our June PAC meeting and also asked parents in attendance to feel free to email him directly with feedback; and
• The board meeting held on June 27 where the trustees sat for five hours while they gave everyone a chance to speak. I know, because I spoke even though I was initially on the wait list.
At this point I do not understand Mr. Pak and other parents at the board meeting who fault the school board for lack of communication. What more are they saying the board should have done? Robo calls? Trustees showing up at their door with tea and rainbow cupcakes?
Our district faces many challenges from declining enrollment to overcrowding at city centre schools to budget shortfalls to seismic remediation/school closures/redrawing catchment lines. Richmond students and parents deserve better than a single issue candidate. The SOGI policy has been duly adopted. As Trustee Hamaguchi put it, we should all “give it a chance”...just like Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Delta, New Westminster, Abbotsford, and all of the other school districts in the province, bar one, who adopted SOGI policies before Richmond.
Sowon Huh
RICHMOND
