Mission middle schoolers are struggling and local parents are growing concerned.
The Mission District Parents’ Advisory Council (MDPAC) met with local MLAs Pam Alexis and Bob D’Eith on Dec. 19 to ask questions and spark conversation.
MDPAC is a nonprofit acting as a parental voice to education decision-making organizations impacting the Mission Public School District (MPSD).
The middle school model in Mission is one of the parents’ chief concerns. MDPAC chair Jacquelyn Wickham says students in Mission middle schools have more trouble transitioning to that level.
“They get lost, they don’t necessarily have the same degree of sense of community [or] sense of belonging,” Wickham said.
UBC’s Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) data provides insights into children’s social and emotional health, well-being and assets during middle childhood.
In Mission, 52.6 per cent of students fell under low well-being.
“That represents their optimism – so how they see their future, their happiness, how happy they are, their self-esteem, how they feel about themselves, their absence of sadness, so how pervasive is sadness in their life, and then their general overall health,” Wickham said.
MDPAC hopes that collaboration with MPSD staff, teachers and trustees will help improve the situation.
In meeting with local MLAs, Wickham says it’s a great start to collaborating with the province as well.
“We can come to you with problems, we can come to you with some solutions and some ideas for solutions, but we also want that collaborative effort, so that they can help bring some things to the table as well,” Wickham said.
During the meeting with Alexis and D’Eith, Wickham says it was a good opportunity to help them understand some of the concerns and priorities within the district.
Funding is near the top of the list of parents’ concerns.
“There’s often this approach from the school district, from each individual school [and] from teachers, about scarcity because there’s never confidence that the same funding will exist or how things will be funded,” Wickham said.
Wickham says there’s also concern about growth in the district, technology in schools, and safety.
MDPAC sent a letter to the district that was attached to the agenda of the Dec. 19 Board of Education meeting. It asked that consideration be made for detailing the rights and responsibilities of students, teachers and administration as related to technology in schools.
Meanwhile, with school populations growing, MDPAC is also asking how the district will be able to manage the growth and provide physical space for the students.
Issues around safety included kids getting to and from school with Mission’s usage of provincial highways.
“It’s hard to know what kind of improvements are going to be made and how long down the line those kinds of things would come,” Wickham said.
MDPAC is always looking for ways to improve engagement and have more parents’ voices heard, Wickham says.