Teachers’ Rep Looking for Louder Voices on School Board
Prince George, B.C. – If there’s one thing Tina Cousins is looking for from a new school board it’s louder voices at the table.
“I’m looking for candidates that are going to speak out and be advocates for public education. We have had quite a tumultuous year. Actually 18 months at the bargaining table and we need voices that are going to be loud.”
And the president of the Prince George & District Teachers’ Association says writing strongly worded letters like the current board did over the summer simply doesn’t cut it.
“The strongly worded letters aren’t working anymore and I think we need to have a united front with trustees telling our government that they’re not funding public education properly.”
Pressed on how trustees could provide a louder voice Cousins says “well we hear from Patti Bacchus (Vancouver trustee) a lot. She seems to have no problem raising her voice. And I think sometimes we need a more radical move. Perhaps having a needs budget.”
She prefers not to grade the current crop of trustees but admits she’ll be voting for change November 15th.
“Yes. We’ve seen over our teachers’ strike that we need to hear from our board. We did not hear our board a lot during our teachers’ strike and that’s a concern to us.”
Cousins says the PGDTA won’t publicly be endorsing candidates but notes they are involved with a questionnaire and will endorse candidates to their own membership.
“It’s in the process but it hasn’t come to fruition at this point in time.”
If you’d like to hear from the candidates yourself there are now three confirmed trustee forums.
October 29th at 7 pm at the College of New Caledonia. November 4th at 7 pm at Vanier Hall and November 6th at the Mackenzie Rec Centre at 7 pm.
A fourth forum is currently in the works for McBride but a date and time has yet to be announced.
Comments
Agreed. As I’ve said in other threads, the trustee position for some seems to have turned into a quasi-political position where the main goal is to lobby the government for more funding using ‘strongly worded letters’.
I too will be voting for change for school trustees. The current bunch has lost their way.
With very limited exceptions, all we get from the candidates is biographies and platitudes. I’d like to see candidates who have positions on things that need to be improved or reviewed. Why don’t we see candidates taking positions on, say, the quality of instruction in French at the 5-8 level, whether the district should devote more attention to trades, whether there are sufficient advanced offerings in math for university-bound students interested in math and science, whether more local history should be taught, is the ab ed department doing a good job, how are we doing identifying children with reading problems and helping them? (These are just hypotheticals – this isn’t intended to be a list of what in my opinion needs attention.) If school board elections were at all like city council elections, issues like these would be raised.
School boards used to have a voice, but then the seats were targeted by union hacks. So the Gov simply decided to count the redundancy out of the equation.
It sounds like Cousins wants a board who is at the beck and call of the BCTF. I’d rather see a board whose members are neutral.
According to the BCSTA, “Trustees engage their communities in building and maintaining a school system that reflects local priorities, values and expectations. School trustees listen to their communities; guide the work of their school district; and set plans, policies and the annual budget. Reflecting the strength of local representation, boards report back to their communities on how students are doing: boards are directly accountable to the people they serve.”
They are not there to be union shills.
LOL…so it would be safe to say that you guys aren’t voting for the CUPE union guy running for trustee ?
Axman, think you’re right.
No, don’t think her interest is advisable. After what the teachers put the taxpayer through, we need common sense and good judgement, two things that appeared lacking at the BCTF negotiating table, IMHO.
As a candidate, I have declined the opportunity to be endorsed by any special interest groups. I do plan on being a loud voice for the best public education we can provide the students of School District 57. Denise MacDonald
To elaborate, I believe that the electorate of SD57 will endorse the candidates, that trustees are a team that works for ALL the students and partner groups of this school district and elected officials should not have a personal agenda (although most do) other than doing the most for the people whom they represent. School Trustees represent their communities, not just a particular part of it. Students and top quality education are my priority. Have a great day everyone, Denise MacDonald
I’m still trying to suss out who will be best for the school board. One person I’m definitely voting for is Kate Cooke. But past that I’m still up in the air. There are so many candidates! I guess that’s a good thing. I hesitate to vote for people who want to spend $100,000 on a consultant to create a Strategic Plan. That’s two more support staff or badly needed other resources, if you ask me. I don’t care which budget that money comes from. I’m looking for strong voices for public education, too. It’s badly underfunded and I will support those who want to fight for our kids education. Denise MacDonald, I hope you are one of those people. If you are, I will vote for you.
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