Talk:List of school districts in British Columbia

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[edit] Naming conventions

Spilling over from a discussion at Talk:School district 36, British Columbia, I must say I find the BC school board naming conventions...hmmm...unfortunate. If I'm moving to Vancouver for example -- or for the rest of the world not living in Vancouver -- it it unlikely I would know to search for School district 39, British Columbia. More than likely, I'd search for "Vancouver school board". As it turns out, the actual article is called Vancouver School Board, and the "school district 39" is just a redirect page, which demonstrates how the numeric titles are not helpful. Before the rest of these redlinks get filled in, shouldn't we drop the numeric school board designation and use the names that people would likely use to search for information? (I'm also using this article to compare ease-of-use between BC school boards and Ontario school boards.) --Stephane Charette 21:38, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

One reason to use the numbered names is that most often, school districts span more than one city or region. For example, School district 39, British Columbia covers the University Endowment Lands, and School district 36, British Columbia covers White Rock, British Columbia -- Usgnus 21:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I would like to create entries for all the districts so it would be helpful if there was a consensus on this. While there are some exceptions to how a district might refer to itself, I would assume the Wikipedia entries would follow the legal name of the organization. While it may be simple for sites like Vancouver and Surrey, that would be the exception rather than the rule. Even this page doesn't use the real name of the districts opting for some city names. For the purposes of this list could we have the correct name and then separate entries for the board office location, and the area served? Wakemp 00:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
But each school district has a name, so we should use them. Some areas like "Kootenay—Columbia" may cover a big area, and small contained villages might not listed, but as long as that is covered in the area, it would show up in a search. I think the numbers should be included, but using only the numbers is silly. -- TheMightyQuill 09:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Here are some of the proposals so far, including a new one:

  1. British Columbia School District 23, Central Okanagan
  2. BC School District 23 (Central Okanagan)
  3. BC school district 23 Central Okanagan
  4. School district 23, Central Okanagan
  5. School district 23 Central Okanagan

and the existing standard from this article is

  • School district 23, British Columbia
-- Usgnus 14:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
To clarify, my suggestion is we use both the number and name, for the entry, the list on this page should list the board office location and communities served as additional info. Such as:
School District Main Office Region Communities Served
School District No. 23 Central Okanagan Kelowna Okanagan/Mainline Kelowna, Rutland, Westbank
School District No. 27 Cariboo-Chilcotin Williams Lake Northeast 100 Mile House, Williams Lake
School District No. 28 Quesnel Quesnel Northeast Quesnel
School District No. 35 Langley Langley Metro/Coast Langley, Langley City, Fort Langley, Aldergrove
School District No. 36 Surrey Surrey Metro/Coast Surrey, White Rock, Cloverdale

Wakemp 17:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

That table is a good idea, as is a template on each school district page that provides the same info. As for the article titles, I'm fine with any of the above options, as long as they contain the name and number. I think it makes sense to have British Columbia in there too, but it doesn't seem like any other school districts in the us or canada have included their state/province. Up to you guys. -- TheMightyQuill 18:36, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm happy with Wakemp's direction although I think the "No. " is unnecessary. Plus, I think the province name should be omitted except for disambiguation (in parentheses). -- Usgnus 18:52, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed format

It doesn't look like any require the British Columbia disambig Wakemp 20:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

revised look:

School District Main Office Region Communities Served
School District 5 Southeast Kootenay Cranbrook Kootenays Cranbrook, Fernie, Sparwood
School District 6 Rocky Mountain Invermere Kootenays Kimberly, Invermere, Golden
School District 8 Kootenay Lake Nelson Kootenays Nelson, Creston, Salmo
School District 10 Arrow Lakes Nakusp Kootenays Nakusp
School District 19 Revelstoke Revelstoke Okanagan/Mainline Revelstoke
School District 20 Kootenay-Columbia Trail Kootenays
School District 22 Vernon Vernon Okanagan/Mainline Vernon, Lumby
School District 23 Central Okanagan Kelowna Okanagan/Mainline Kelowna, Rutland, Westbank
  • Anyone else think we should have a comma between the number and the name? E.g.,:
  • School district 5 Southeast Kootenay
becomes:
  • School district 5, Southeast Kootenay
--Stephane Charette 20:34, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Should we use wiki markup for easier maintenance? -- Usgnus 21:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

School District Main Office Region Communities Served
School District 5 Southeast Kootenay Cranbrook Kootenays Cranbrook, Fernie, Sparwood
School District 6 Rocky Mountain Invermere Kootenays Kimberly, Invermere, Golden


That would make sense to me Wakemp 21:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I propose that we rename the five existing districts to the new standard and, if necessary, use redirects. -- Usgnus 22:39, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I've put the old links on the current list for now, there appear to be multiple links an redirects around the current articles so some clean up is required Wakemp 22:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

All the pages have been moved to the new standard except Vancouver School Board and Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique. We have at least a basic article for SDs 5-64, 73, 79, and 93 (My thanks to Usgnus,Stephane Charette, and TheMightyQuill) QUESTION:I thinkg Vancouver should be moved but CSF likely warrants a unique treatment. Wakemp 17:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Move VSB, but leave CSFBC as is for now. -- Usgnus 03:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
I moved VSB to School District 39 Vancouver and most of the wikilinks altered (TheMightyQuill beat me to some of them) except for Talk pages Wakemp 15:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Communities served

What is the purpose of this column? Is it to help readers find the appropriate school district or is it to simply list the legal municipalities? Deep Cove is currently be part of the DNV, but listing it may be useful, especially if it has its own article. Besides, if we remove communities just because they are part of another city or municipality, we'll have to remove Cloverdale, Aldergrove, Fort Langley, Clearbrook, Matsqui, Ladner, Tsawwassen, Queensborough, Rosedale and possibly more. -- Usgnus 07:37, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

My impression is that the "Communities served" column is there to "disambiguate" (if you will) the very basic information provided by the school district titles. The name "SD45 West Vancouver", for example, doesn't indicate that this district includes more than just West Vancouver (as it also supports the independent municipalities of Lions Bay and Bowen Island.) "SD46 Sunshine Coast", on the other hand, needs an explanation that it doesn't include the entire Sunshine Coast, excluding Powell River. This is very different from the situation with Deep Cove, which is not a separate community. It's a part of the District of North Vancouver, and has been for a very long time. If we're going to list DC as a separate entity from North Van, then we might as well list Edgemont Village, and Ambleside, and Horseshoe Bay, and so on - and that's just the North Shore. (I'd argue that there's no reason to list "Queensborough" separately, nor Fort Langley, and Matsqui merged with Abbotsford.) If we split things up too much, we'll end up making it more confusing (rather than less). Perhaps part of the problem lies within the "community within a community" articles, such as Deep Cove and Aldergrove. They might need to be revised so as to clearly indicate that they are a part of a larger whole, rather than a separate entity. This was a problem with the DC article, and taking a quick look, I see that the Aldergrove article (for example) describes Aldergrove as a city. Hmmm.... --08:35, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've never been to Deep Cove, but Fort Langley and Aldergrove are really clearly separate communities within Langley Township. I wouldn't suggest including all the separate neighbourhoods in Langley, but people address mail to Fort Langley and Aldergrove. -- TheMightyQuill 08:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree that we really need to think about whether listing the community helps or not. Almost all locals know that Deep Cove is part of NVD and Queensborough is part of New West, but how many know that Aldergrove is part of Langley, or that Cloverdale is part of Surrey? -- Usgnus 09:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Deep Cove has, for the longest time, had this sort of "mix-up" as to what it is. From my understanding, the North Shore began as the District of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver split off to form their own communities. Deep Cove, on the other hand, has always been a neighbourhood in North Vancouver. (The DC Historical Society has a lot of old maps on their web site that illustrate this.) Again, the question becomes, how finely do you want to chop this up? If residents in Aldergrove see their school district listed as "Langley", do they think they're not a part of it? If there's a legitimate reason for listing a neighbourhood, then I'd say go for it. My point, today, is that we don't need to list Deep Cove, or any other North Shore neighbourhoods. --Ckatz 09:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I included the collumn in response to others adding on of these community names to the previous list. I don't see a particular problem with it being there or not. The issue of what level you go to is problematic. Going by the municipal boundries tends to produce equally weird results. It would eliminate Ladner and Tsawassen from SD37 and add North Saanich, Central Saanich, Township of Sidney, and District of the Highlands to SD63. If we think Deep Cove is too local a name then we should remove it. I had an equal problem including the two North Vancouvers and the two Langleys would an outside observer really care? - probably not. I would suggest that if there is a Wiki entry on an area it could be linked in that collumn. The purpose should be to provide links to community information for the areas server by the SD. Wakemp 15:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources of Data for School District Pages

To all that may wish to contribute to the pages on BC Schools and School districts; There are lists of all schools and district information at the Ministry of Education site These two ASCII files are easily manipulated in excel or a text editor to produce lists of school and districts. Current update is as of January 16, 2006 for the 2005/06 school year. For the district infobox see the comments at Template:BC School District. For historical data on BC Schools and districts check The Homeroom @ Malaspina College. Also check Wikipedia:WikiProject Education in Canada for additional details on what people are editing. Wakemp 21:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SD logos?

Any idea what the copyright deal is for a school district logo? The {PreK12-logo} tag doesn't seem to apply. Thanks. -- TheMightyQuill 16:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I have avoided adding any SD logos. I don't think there is any doubt that the logos are the property of the district. The application of US fair use to organizations outside the US - I have no idea. The only similar situation I have come accross is the use of Squadron crests for some military articles - thankfully the Federal governement site had a Non-Commerical right to reproduce. Wakemp 17:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
There are several options here:
--Stephane Charette 05:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I asked the question over at WP:EiC, and the result was to create {{Schoolboard-logo}}. Problem solved. --Stephane Charette 08:12, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changes

Would be nice if the Changes subsection had references to cite. --Stephane Charette 05:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Done Wakemp 16:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Independent schools

We have independent schools in BC that operate outside of the school districts? With the addition of Meadowridge today in the external links (not the appropriate place, but I guess we'd need at least a stub to move it elsewhere), I'm thinking we may need to start a new section or a new page. --Stephane Charette 18:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I think for now, creating a stub article, as you suggested, is the best approach. Then we can replace the external link with a "See also" to Category:Private schools in British Columbia.