The clock stands at 20 minutes from the hour when they start to enter single file through a heavy door on the second floor of the facility’s main rotunda.
There is an uncanny resemblance to the rotunda featured in Oz, the TV prison drama from the late ’90s.
Overhead, light from a pale November sun streams in through the high windows, casting shadows on the walls.
Security, which minutes before had been nearly invisible, is now part of the setting as the teens — all dressed in the same green and black inmate uniforms — stand waiting for the guard at the bottom of the stairs to offer the next instruction.
Behind them, the door closes and locks. It won’t open until they’ve walked down the stairs and disappeared, as instructed by a guard, into one of the classrooms on the main floor.
Then, and only then, will the door open again to allow another small group of similarly dressed teens to file through. It’s a deliberate technique used to control the flow of bodies and minimize conflict.
The student body
Such is how students navigate the halls at the secondary school inside the Burnaby Youth Custody Services (BYCS) centre, B.C.’s largest youth custody centre, which has operated at its current location along an arm of the Fraser River in South Burnaby since 2007.
On paper, the school, which is run by the Burnaby School District and funded through a special government program, is not unlike other high schools throughout the province in the courses offered or in its intended goals and outcomes.
The main difference, of course, is the makeup of the student body.
They range in age from 13 to 18 years old and are segregated into colour-coded groups depending on their sex and in-custody status (secure custody vs. open custody).
Inside these walls, these are kids who have committed crimes ranging from theft to assault to even murder. They are, first and foremost, residents of BYCS, serving prison time for a bad decision made.
But they are also students. And for five days a week, from 8:15 a.m. to 2:10 p.m., that’s what the majority of them are, for as long as they remain behind these walls in south Burnaby.
A learning plan
For most, that stay will last only about one month, explains Tom Cikes, the school’s headteacher, which is just one of the challenges students and teachers face in trying to implement, stick to and document a learning plan — a fact demonstrated by the many half-finished projects inside the school’s art room.
Given that many of the stays are short, students are not, as a rule, enrolled in classes unless they are staying for more than a week.
Letter grades are offered only if a student has stayed a minimum of 10 days, otherwise an anecdotal report is attached to the student’s file and the work they have done is kept track of as best as possible, said Cikes.
The school has, on average, between 60-80 students at any given time and an annual graduation rate of about three students.
The greater challenges
There are, of course, far greater challenges not found in so-called regular schools.
Many of the students have complex profiles, suffer from trauma or have been diagnosed with learning disabilities or behavioural disorders.
Cikes explains that care has to be taken not to re-traumatize them while trying to teach them. Part of this, he says, is accomplished by training teachers in youth trauma but also, most importantly, by ensuring students have a comfortable and safe environment in which to learn.
Paramount to that is establishing a level of trust between student and teacher, something so many of the kids don’t have when they first enter the system due to their troubled backgrounds.
“Attachment is a big thing — many of them haven’t had adults who have been a big part of their lives,” said Cikes, noting resources provided through Youth corrections, from drug and alcohol counselling to mental health services and First Nations liaison workers, offers added support.
“If they are not comfortable, if they feel unsafe, their brain isn’t going to let them learn.”
Some inspiration
Read aloud, the inspirational quotes adorning the walls of the school’s science room sound familiar to anyone who has spent any time in a classroom.
One of them, written on a blackboard, invokes the image of a path with obstacles in it as a metaphor for overcoming adversity in one’s life. The other, found on a poster, is less pensive: “Life always offers you a second chance,” it reads. “It’s called tomorrow.”
For many of the students here, there have been a lot of tomorrows as well as revolving-door visits to Youth correction. And for most, school has been at the bottom end of their priorities list.
According to a 2013 study on the profile of B.C. youth in custody, only 14 per cent were enrolled in mainstream school in the three months prior to entering custody. In that same period, 44 per cent were enrolled in an alternative schooling program and 41 per cent were not in school at all. A further 90 per cent of students reported that they had been expelled from school at some point for reasons ranging from fighting to drugs to poor attendance.
Yet, the same report found attitudes toward school were generally more favourable for students in custody, with most students saying their educational plans included finishing school and continuing studies past high school. Sixty-four per cent reported liking attending school while in-custody, as opposed to school in the community, with a same percentage saying they “like” going to school and 62 per cent reporting they were “happy” to be at school.
Terms of engagement
The report concluded these positive results seem to be directly linked to the presence of an adult at the custody centre that the students felt cared about their well being.
“It’s all about engagement with these guys,” explains Sean, the school’s English teacher.
“It’s all about relationships and engaging through relationships. If you can establish the relationship, then you can move onto the other stuff.”
Part of that engagement process, for Sean, is separating the student’s past behaviour from the individual, and understanding that much of what a student may do is part of an elaborate and complicated defence mechanism. It’s also about presenting school material in a way that a student can relate to — using, for example, the rhyming patterns of rapper 50 cent as a launching pad for a larger discussion on rhyming and poetry — and broadening the definition of success.
“If a kid comes down in the morning, looks you in the eye, and says ‘Hello,’ that is a success,” he said. “On the outside we wouldn’t think much of that ... We all make bad decisions. It easy to remember that here.”
It’s early afternoon when seven students enter the art room. They wear green sweaters and black pants, meaning they are boys who are being held in secure custody. While roughly the same age, it is clear that some are older than others, a reflection of another of the challenges the school’s teachers face in having to cater to different grade and literacy levels within a single class.
Each teacher, Cikes explained, has to be able to offer learning objectives to each student, based on their individual needs. Classes don’t exceed eight students.
Another day of classes
Other than the security guard seated to the back of the room and the surveillance camera on the ceiling, nothing appears out-of-the-ordinary.
Upon entering the room, the students busied themselves with their individual projects, the bulk of which were pulled out and started on with little direction from the teacher. Of the seven, only one seemed to need extra guidance. They talked in groups, and only once were told to mind their language.
On the surface, at least, it appeared to be just another day of classes — a scene acted out thousands of times a day in classrooms across the province.
“It’s just a different set of challenges,” explained Steve, the school’s business education teacher. “To me, they are just students. That moment when something changes, whether it is they realize they can succeed, or the moment when a kid says ‘I want to go to BCIT, I want an education, I want to make something of my life’ ... it is special.”
Range of courses
In addition to offering the core courses of English, Math, Science and Social Studies, the high school inside BYCS offers Art, Home Economics, Business Education, Computer Applications and First Nations Studies.
There is also, however, a strong emphasis on developing vocational skills through woodwork and carpentry projects and an introductory welding course.
The school also offers several certificate courses, including: St. Johns Emergency First Aid, Food Safe, Flag Person/Traffic Control Training, Hydrogen Sulfide training (applicable for work in the oilfield) and Serving it Right.
