Prince George, B.C. – If Mackenzie Mayor Pat Crook has his way, there will be rural representation in place the next time school trustees are elected in the Prince George School District in 2018.

He’ll make his case at tonight’s monthly Prince George School Board meeting. 

“Of the 60 school districts in B.C., 29 have provisions for geographic representation on their board of trustees,” he says.

“Of those 60 school districts, 31 do not have regional representation, and 13 of these school districts without regional representation are located within a single community.”

Crook says regional representation can be achieved in numerous forms.

“Some districts utilize the political boundaries of their regional district and have a mix of trustees that represent specific municipalities and others who represent one or more of a region’s electoral area.”

He says other districts divide their region into community areas and elect one or more trustees from each area.

Crook says examples of school districts with geographic representation close-by include School District 73 (Kamloops/Thompson), School District 27 (Williams Lake), School District 22 (Vernon) and School District 82 (Coast Mountains).

Utlimately, he says having a trustee located in Mackenzie would provide for better representation.

“Having a trustee in the area would give a voice to the real concerns in the community.”

Crook says he already has the support of the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George (in fact the District has also supported electing another trustee for the Robson Valley).

He says the issue first came up during the 2014 campaign, when at an all-candidates meeting in Mackenzie trustees showed their support for the idea.

However Crook says the current school board has yet to decide on the matter though last November Board Chair Tony Cable suggested it wasn’t necessary to 250News.

“The frustrating thing is I think this board has done more work and more thinking about rural education than a lot of boards in the past,” he said.

“And it’s definitely a focus of ours. We have done trips out to the Robson Valley and Mackenzie, they are definitely on our radar.”

But Crook says that doesn’t go far enough.”I had the same conversation with Tony and I said Tony, Mackenzie isn’t the same community it was 15 or even 20 years ago. It’s an entirely different community with entirely different issues.”