1328 replies to this topic

[dasmo]

My dad was beaten at school. It just gets softer and softer on each generation.

[Mike K.]

Vic West is not in the suburbs or remote. It’s an inner city school, within easy walking distance of every kid that goes there. There are several more schools in the area so no kid in Esquimalt or Vic West has to trek too, too far.

[dasmo]

I think many are just happy their kid goes to school these days. Myself included. Add in the greater fear factor. Then the culture of it. In my time in the Netherlands it was totally different. In the morning it was mostly kids biking or walking alone. Almost no car dropping off. The bike lanes in Rotterdam made that city livable. Too bad we have screwed them up here.

[lanforod]

We placed a higher value on our kids education as well, that's why we sent them to private schools.

 

We placed a higher value on our kids, that's why we have them in private schools.

Edited by lanforod, 08 December 2025 - 08:24 AM.

[LJ]

So I went back and looked at what I did as a kid going to school. We all walked at that time, it was approx 1.3km, an 18 minute walk according to google. 

We walked in the morning then home for lunch and back and then home after school. 

We would walk up the laneways and in the late spring and in the fall we would pick and eat fruit from the neighbouring yards as we went.

[Matt R.]

Walked or biked, apparently about 600 m. Bike racks, of which there were plenty, were always full unless it snowed. If it rained, you put a plastic bread bag over your seat while in class.

Sometimes we would take an alternate route, to visit the goats and cows on the hobby farm on the corner of Longacre and Torrington, as I recall.

[Beacon]

 

The B.C. government is planning to build a new 465 seat francophone school in Saanich, with classes ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

 

The school will be built on the same site as Lansdowne Middle school and is intended to be a replacement for the existing École Beausoleil.

 

The current École Beausoleil operates out of a temporary facility on the same property as Braefoot Elementary with a capacity of 170 elementary school students.

 

https://cheknews.ca/...aanich-1293013/

 

 

 

 

I truly have no idea why we have so many French schools.  It's insane.

 

 

The answer (from someone who went to french immersion)

 

Parents know the public schools are a mess, so they send their kids to french immersion as it's more demanding learning a second language, so those that don't make the cut are removed and end up in the English only class (where all the kids with "challenges" end up.  By the time I finished elementary school only about 40% of the original class was still there.

[Mike K.]

That’s quite something.

The monies there are FI programs at some schools, too. I think Quadra is one of them. Or was. Gosh, time is flying so fast. I think my friend’s kid is now in high schools, or up there in middle school. Crazy.

[Daveyboy]

My dad was beaten at school. It just gets softer and softer on each generation.

Oh for the good old days......!

[mbjj]

We walked or rode our bikes to school, and also used the plastic bread bag. I think it was the only plastic bag around in those days. If it was really pouring rain, either my mum or my friend's mum would drive us so we didn't get soaked. According to google maps, it was about 1 km. Seemed so far as a kid! 

 

Our daughter walked to Central Jr. High and Vic. High and the upper grades in Sir James Douglas. I probably took her when she was young. 

Edited by mbjj, 09 December 2025 - 02:42 PM.

[max.bravo]

My parents were smart enough to buy a house that literally backed onto the elementary school field. Genius move.

[Victoria Watcher]

Farm-fresh foods provided to hungry school kids

Flourish! School Food Society, a not-for-profit registered charity, provides about 1,100 meals to 27 schools each school day.


https://www.timescol...l-kids-11653897




I don’t know why taxpayers have to pay for free lunches for Oak Bay High students.

https://oakbay.sd61....menu-sept-2024/

According to their 2024 financials they received zero donations. But about $1M in government contracts. They spent $500,000 of that on their 15 employees, and about $350,000 in actual food.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 December 2025 - 05:48 AM.

[aastra]

Didn't realize the walkways between the new residential buildings at Vic High were now open. Are the buildings occupied? They seemed pretty dead, other than security folks.

 

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Edited by aastra, 31 December 2025 - 06:50 PM.

[Mike K.]

They’re hitting the market now, so occupancy must be very close.

[Victoria Watcher]

 The British Columbia government says portable facilities will begin arriving in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., to allow children to return to school after six people were killed at the community's high school last week.

The B.C. government says in a news release that the new facilities will be set up on the grounds of nearby Tumbler Ridge Elementary school.

It says the single-wide trailers will be the first phase in the resumption of classes in a safe environment for Tumbler Ridge Secondary students.

Chad Anderson, the chair of the Peace River South School Board, says they know routine and community are important to many in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The statement says the first buildings arriving Monday will be the bathroom trailers, followed by the classroom units on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it's expected to take several days to set up the units with heating, water and furnishings.

Five pupils and a teacher's aide were shot dead at the school last Tuesday by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, after she killed her mother and 11-year-old half brother at their home.

The statement says a date for classes to resume hasn’t been confirmed.

 

 

https://www.timescol...ooting-11885996

 

 

 

This is a waste of money.  There is nothing wrong with the old school.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 16 February 2026 - 06:35 PM.

[LJ]

^I agree, the school never did anything wrong and the shooter had been removed from the school 4 years ago.

[Victoria Watcher]

“I’d be sitting here with all these non-Indigenous students who are just kind of tired of listening to this.”

At first, Grace was frustrated.

“But then a part of me is like, well — they’re learning the same thing four times a day, for the entire four years of high school.”

The often-repetitive lessons on the same Indigenous topics are a byproduct of a new teacher mandate to include Indigenous elements or knowledge in their classes, following changes in the curriculum and teaching standards in the province.

Since 2019, educators have been required to take steps to include the perspectives of First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada in order to be certified by the B.C. Teachers’ Council, the sector’s professional standards body in the province.

But that hasn’t always been done in an elegant way.

“Like in my Math class, they have to count canoes, and it’s like, how tall is this totem pole, and I’m like … OK?” said Grace, with a hint of an eyeroll.

It’s easy to tell who was teaching to meet requirements, as opposed to teachers who are actually putting in the work, she said.

Wanting to change that, Grace is among a group of Indigenous students who, in the past two years, have helped put together a new high school course with local First Nations input.

It’s among a handful of trailblazing efforts within B.C.’s public school system to teach students knowledge relevant to local First Nations.

‘You’re learning about the same issues’

Michelle Cunningham, a long-time Stelly’s humanities teacher, said under provincial mandates, almost every class is now required to have one-fifth of its coursework tied to Indigenous ways of learning.

Teachers are doing their best to incorporate that into their lesson plans, but most of it is done without much support, she said.

What often happens is that teachers end up fixated on the same three topics — residential schools, the Sixties Scoop and some Indigenous communities’ lack of access to drinking water.

The topics “speak to the negative and don’t celebrate Indigeneity,” she said.






https://www.timescol...course-11869859


We truly are a bonkers society. Then we wonder why our productivity is lower than Alabama.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 February 2026 - 05:59 AM.

[dasmo]

Exactly. They don’t talk about the 150 years of business partnership. Or the fact that Canada was founded as a business monopoly. Or explore why England thought the owner the land here when they sold it to McDonald’s newly formed government. Or why he didn’t include the nations in that government.

[Victoria Watcher]

Or probably the real reason why there are drinking water issues.

[dasmo]

It’s like SOGI it’s a corruption of a good idea. Or intentionally malicious veiled in good language.