Nanaimo school district is lacking a clear, district-wide plan for its most vulnerable students.

But to create that plan district officials must first define exactly what a vulnerable student is.

That’s the finding of an independent review of the district’s $2.2-million Community LINK (Learning Involves Nutrition and Knowledge) program, which helps vulnerable students succeed in the classroom.

“We haven’t nailed down a definition of what vulnerability is,” said Bob Esliger, district principal of student support services.

The review, conducted by consultant Linda Scotton, found the district lacks a coherent plan for systematically addressing the specific needs of all vulnerable students.

It also found there was insufficient hard data to determine if the district was adequately addressing the needs of vulnerable students. Many schools reported outcomes of the funding anecdotally or in terms of ‘we feel.’

The program pays for child, youth and family support workers, a school meals coordinator, community schools coordinators, food programs, extra learning supports, and financial support to students on or below the poverty line to ensure they can participate in field trips and specialty programs such as band.

Esliger said each school does something different with Community LINK funds and there are no common methods for reporting results.

“It’s the flexibility of the resource that makes it powerful, but very difficult to become outcomes-based,” he said. “We need to start collecting more data. There isn’t enough quantitative data, there’s no statistics, but we’ve got a lot of anecdotal evidence from school staff and parents that it’s working very well.”

Esliger said Scotton also identified a need for more collaboration with the community and parents.

District staff are now tasked with taking a hard look at the review’s recommendations and coming up with changes.

“We’re going to build a framework for action,” said Esliger.

Jamie Brennan, school board chairman, said change in the way the program operates is necessary.

“The problem is, we’re feeling good about what we’re doing with the money, but we don’t have the data to demonstrate that we’re making a difference with the money,” he said. “We need to be accountable for that expenditure.”

reporter@nanaimobulletin.com