McBride, B.C. – Tonight’s monthly Prince George School Board meeting is shaping up to be a long one.

It will be held in McBride for their yearly trip outside Prince George where the focus will be on the Board’s Ad Hoc Committee on Rural Education recommendations. 

There’s 14 of them in all and chairperson Tony Cable says a couple of them stand out, including a recommendation to allow the billeting of district secondary sports teams in district schools.

“We’ve had a lot of comments from rural areas about when they bring sports teams into Prince George, they would like to be able to stay overnight in a school,” he says.

“And up until now that hasn’t been possible but there is a recommendation that says you can use the school gyms and save the money of going to a hotel and so on.”

Cable says other prominent recommendations include the possibility of having a district principal looking after rural education matters and putting more money into upgrading equipment for video conferencing.

He says one issue that will likely receive little discussion will be the recommendation for a district name change that better reflects the large geographic area of the district.

“That’s an interesting one and that one probably we won’t be discussing too much because that would take a long time and there’s a lot of people that invest of a lot of passion into naming things, so that one may have to be put off to a later date.”

Cable says they’ll also use the trip to meet with various stakeholders.

“We are going to be visiting the schools in McBride. Then we’ll go from visiting schools to a meeting of teachers and parents and from there to a dinner that we’re hosting with the mayor and council and principals of the district.”

He says they plan to stay the night in McBride then meet with all of the district’s union and CUPE staff tomorrow morning.