Tweet For the first time in Canada, researchers have studied a whole city of children for “well-being ” in a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood comparison — and the new Vancouver-based study points to an “urgent” need for increased support for Grade 4 children, they say. The report is based on a new research tool called The Middle Years [...]

Tweet Parents hoping to get their children a spot in a French immersion school in Vancouver are finding spots tough to come by, and the problem could get worse, advocates say. The waiting list for the program has grown to 250 names this year, double that of a year ago, yet one French immersion school [...]

Tweet The Vancouver School Board plans to close as many as 10 schools to make up for a multi-million dollar budget shortfall, chair Patti Bacchus announced on Thursday. “The Vancouver board of education must now begin preparing for the closure of several Vancouver schools over the coming year,” Bacchus told reporters at a press conference. [...]

Tweet The Vancouver school district plans to identify a number of schools for potential closure in a report to be released in June, sparking a year-long process that’s intended to address problems of declining enrolments and rising costs, trustee Mike Lombardi said Thursday. He wouldn’t speculate on how many schools might be on the list, [...]

Tweet A Vancouver Catholic school accused of firing a woman for being gay says that the she was never fired, and is still employed as a music teacher at Little Flower Academy. Lisa Reimer said that she was told earlier this week she need not come in to work for the remainder of her one-year [...]

Tweet Vancouver is joining a string of other B.C. school districts in adding school holidays to save money. Trustees voted last night in favour of closing schools for a two-week spring break in 2011, instead of one week, and will extend long weekends throughout the year to allow for a further five days of closures. [...]

Tweet The North Vancouver board of education has voted to close two schools and next week is expected to approve a third closure, but that won’t end the district’s financial problems or eliminate all excess school space, board chairwoman Susan Skinner said Wednesday. “We are certainly not out of the woods yet,” she said in [...]

Tweet Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid dispatched a special adviser to Vancouver‘s board of education Wednesday, asking her to find savings where the board has failed. “This is a serious situation. We felt it was important to take action,” MacDiarmid told reporters in Victoria. “They [members of Vancouver's board of education] have said they’re having trouble [...]

Tweet A specialized Vancouver facility for 16 of the most disruptive elementary students in the school district has seen a dramatic spike in the use of its seclusion room to control children acting out violently. Staff placed students in a segregation or “calm-down” room at Alderwood Family Development Centre 64 times in 2008, compared to [...]