On Friday, October 11, our cohort travelled to a private school to see how they interpret and practice education. The school is PSII, or Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry, and the founder is an individual named Jeff Hopkins. Hopkins took time out of his schedule to answer our questions and share his approach to education.

Jeff Hopkins founded PSII in 2013 after leaving his position as Superintendent in School District #64. He described the change as ambitious, expensive, time-consuming, and worth every second/dollar. Before his role as Superintendent, Hopkins had experience teaching many different disciplines, and his broad experience no doubt assisted him in creating the cross-curricular inquiry model that PSII practices.

As Hopkins addressed to our group, he spoke about how certain functions of mainstream schools didn’t align with his personal set of values toward education. He noticed students were not being engaged authentically, their learning wasn’t being made personal, and students were not being challenged to find unique pathways to learning. His vision was enormous, so big that he simply couldn’t make changes within an established system such as the BC public school system. So he dreamt up PSII, and 6 months after he decided to make a change, PSII opened it’s doors to students.

My favourite part of PSII is that they are welcoming of all kinds of students. Hopkins admits PSII is biased towards students who love to learn, but their overall program is designed for students who simply want a different structure for their learning. I work with many students who I immediately thought would find more success at PSII than at a public school.

From a personal standpoint, I’m happy PSII exists. Being from a small town (Parksville), there was one high school, and one alternate school which only served students that ‘qualified’ by failing classes at the high school. It’s so nice to live in a school district that has many different styles of schools. Between Ledger House, Artemis Place, S.J. Willis, and the many denominational and non-denominational private schools, there are so many options for the broad needs of today’s students.