WEST END VOICES
/THE PROBLEM OF DOGS ON SCHOOL GROUNDS
by Lucy Maloney
Chair, Lord Roberts Elementary PAC
The outdoor space at the West End’s Lord Roberts Elementary School is one of the most intensely used public open spaces in the downtown peninsula. The pandemic brought home to West Enders how crucial our precious outdoor public spaces are for people who live in small homes with no private yard. This was felt intensely by West End parents trying to keep kids entertained and educated in apartments often with one or more adults attempting to work from home.
Lucy Maloney.
Kids play and gather at Roberts after school and on the weekends, West Enders work out there, the basketball courts are well-used by young people, and the playground is rarely empty. The picnic tables are a popular spot for COVID-friendly birthday parties.
And the field is the front line of the battle between Roberts parents and dog owners who regularly run their dogs off-leash there.
For at least a decade, probably longer, Roberts parents have been fighting to keep dogs off school grounds. The City of Vancouver requires that dogs be kept on leash unless they are in a designate dog off-leash area. The off-leash runs are provided by the City to balance the welfare of dogs with the issues dogs raise for the community. Dog feces and urine are a problem even if dog owners pick up after their dogs. At an elementary school playground, it is common for small hands to dig in the dirt as part of normal play. Whether those hands get washed properly before they rub eyes or mouths is unlikely.
Dogs enjoy playtime too, but they shouldn’t be on school playgrounds.
The nearest off-leash dog runs are at Nelson Park, Sunset Beach Park and Stanley Park – not convenient enough to tempt the regular group dog owners that run their dogs off-leash on the school playing field in the mornings, evenings and weekends. I’m told that the retrievers especially like digging while their owners chat with each other.
Dog owners reportedly have their own social media groups where warnings are posted about by-law officer visits, updating members when the by-laws officers move on. These groups justify their behaviour with the excuse that the field is somehow excised from the "school grounds”, which is not the case. Parents have been verbally abused after alerting off-leash dogs’ owners that they aren’t permitted on school grounds.
It's frustrating for parents to see dog-owners repeatedly ignore the signs posted around the school and stand idly by as their dogs dig craters in the field, endangering the ankles of young soccer players, leaving feces and urine where little people play, and crowding out the kids that would like to use the field on weekends.
The owners of dogs that do bite people are almost always genuinely shocked that their beloved pet caused real harm. Dog owners often say, quite correctly, that you need to approach a strange dog carefully. This is too great a burden to put on elementary school-aged children on their own school grounds. A lot of kids (and adults) are intimidated by dogs and few inner-city children that don’t have a family dog know how to interact safely with dogs to avoid being bitten. Earlier this year a Roberts student was bitten by a leashed dog that had been brought onto school grounds by another Roberts parent.
As far back as 2013 dogs on school grounds were a big enough problem that parents took their concerns to the Vancouver School Board. Despite the VSB putting up large signs around the school prohibiting dogs on school grounds the problem never really went away. A number of those signs have been vandalised and removed and “pandemic pets” and several new pet-friendly apartment towers near the school have intensified the problem.
The VSB has recently confirmed that Roberts is a well-recognized exception to the usual rules allowing even leashed dogs on school grounds. With around 650 students, drop off and pickup times are too crowded for dogs to be safely brought into the school even on-leash.
There are plans to replace the few remaining faded “No Dogs on School Grounds” signs. The logistics of locking up the field between sunset and 8.30 a.m. are being considered. Parents and community members are being encouraged to call 311 or report using the Van311 app.
It would be heartening to think that these dog owners running their dogs off-leash at the school were writing at least emails to the City of Vancouver asking for more off-leash areas rather than just flouting the rules to force frustrated parents and busy school administrators to lobby on their behalf.
We can’t both judge parents for giving their kids too much screen time while continuing as adults to shrink the areas of our communities in which children can freely and safely roam. Most dog owners are courteous and responsible but these few irresponsible dog owners that ignore the prohibition on dogs at Roberts are impinging on one of these significant, precious, limited areas in our community where kids can be kids.
