The Greater Victoria educational community and family are mourning the death of John Bird.
If Bird knew how quickly his cancer would spread, the 62-year-old Saanichite and well-known education advocate who died Feb. 21 wouldn't have taken on the presidency of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils last year.
The cancer was aggressive and his death came less than a year from his diagnosis, said Vanessa, his wife of 25 years and the mother of three of Bird's six children.
"It went… very, very quickly. He’s left a big hole that nobody can even come close to filling."
Bird was involved in the school system for 29 years including 20 years coaching youth basketball and soccer. He served as a director on six different PACs over 13 years and had been part of the Victoria PAC executive for 15 years, nine of those as the president. He touched the lives of too many people for Vanessa to have kept track of, she said.
Colquitz middle school will host a memorial in the gymnasium in Bird's honour on March 11 at 1 p.m.
"It was always about the kids, always," Vanessa said. "We did a dry grad when dry grads weren’t really a thing, about 25 years ago, and it wasn’t for our kids, they weren’t even graduating. It was just about the community."
At the centre of his beliefs was that parents are grossly underrepresented in schools, something he fought to change, saying there’s expertise available with parents that can be brought in. That led to the parent ambassador program at Colquitz, where he was the PAC president.
“With the assistance of a lot of people, Bird started the parent ambassador program at Colquitz, based on the recognition that parents are an asset and a member of the school community,” Vanessa said.
That led to parents contributing by bringing their expertise into the classroom.
Being an advocate to disadvantaged students and their parents came naturally to Bird, who wasn't afraid to take on the system. He used skills he learned as an accountant when he could, but was driven by a caretaker mentality he learned as the oldest of nine children growing up in Ucluelet, Vanessa said.
Former SD61 superintendent John Gaiptman was on the other side of the table during Bird's tenure as the district PAC president for Greater Victoria, a role he carried for 10 years. Gaiptman then worked with Bird on the same side of the table at BCCPAC, where Gaiptman is the current executive director.
"[Bird] was driven to make sure students with special needs wouldn’t be considered second, but would be considered first," Gaiptman said. "This is an incredibly hard-working person. Tthe work he did on a volunteer bases, he never stopped fighting for the rights of students, especially those with special needs and their parents."
On a macro level Bird worked with the Ministry of Education on issues of class composition, and at a micro level he always believed parents, with senior staff, should be sitting together when making decisions about principalships and where principals should be located.
"He never stopped challenging me but he was always fair," Gaiptman said. "He wanted me to really think and think again about the decisions that were being made and whether or not they were absolutely equitable for all children."
Having a daughter with disabilities only brought a clearer picture to Bird's attention of the discrimination that students with diverse needs face.
"We met a lot of families that struggled with it and families marginalized because of it," Vanessa said.
reporter@saanichnews.com