Trustees Focus on Rural Education
Prince George, B.C. – Rural education was discussed at length at last night’s monthly Prince George School Board meeting in McBride.
Much of the discussion revolved around the 14 recommendations made by the district’s Ad Hoc Committee on Rural Education. For example:
1. The Board passed a motion directing staff to research the legal and operational issues of hiring non-profits to provide transportation service for extra-curricular activities in the district.This as a staff report suggests transportation for such activities “is often cost prohibitive if the school is required to utilize the current bussing contractor” for the district.
2. The Board also directed the district’s Human Resources department to continue to work with rural schools to address issues of Teachers Teaching on Call (TTOC) availability. In fact PGDTA president Richard Giroday asked the Board send a letter to the Province asking it to address the issue.
He said there’s been many examples this year where no TTOC’s were present at the school and an educational assistant or counsellor has been asked to sit in on classes.
3. The Board directed the Human Resource department to enhance recruitment and retention of school district employees in rural community settings.
4. The Board recommended quickly upgrading connectivity and improved computer services to rural schools. This as the ministry of education is phasing out its existing Provincial Learning Network and are in the process of transitioning to a new, higher capacity system known as Next Generation Network.
5. A recommendation to engage in a process to change the name of the district from School District 57 (Prince George) to one that better reflects the large geographic area of the district was defeated.
“This could come at a huge financial cost to rebrand,” said Trustee Tim Bennett. “Especially at a time we’re in a financial crunch.”
Missing from the recommendations was any mention of electoral representation for rural areas as raised earlier this school year by Mackenzie Mayor Pat Crook (including at the last PG School Board meeting April 5).
He would like to see the current at-large voting system changed to a ward system that would allow for the election of one trustee for Mackenzie and another for the Robson Valley in time for local elections in 2018.
Comments
Vote for those in rural areas at election time if you want rural representation. Otherwise, the current board is able to do a fine job at representing the rural schools. Rural schools are always in the forefront of all decisions being made by the board.
The School Board has had the report containing these 14 recommendations since January. Now we are in at the end of April and all that has happened is the board resolving to do a lot of ‘recommending’ and ‘considering’. I feel like the trustees would like to make improvements but fear taking any concrete action.
I do applaud them for tossing the idea of a name-change for the district though. This was a nonsense idea and as a resident of a rural community in the district I can assure you that the name has never bothered me and I certainly wouldn’t like to have seen time and money wasted making such a change when it can be far better spent elsewhere.
When PGDTA president Richard Giroday asked the Board to send a letter to the Province asking it to address the issue of a lack of Teachers Teaching on call in rural communities, then we know it is not just a district problem, but a province wide one.
Imagine that, rural one and two room school houses in the early 1900’s had only one teacher, and if that teacher was sick, or had a personal emergency, NO Qualified person(s) were there to take that teacher’s place, and that is now where we are in 2016, back to the early 1900’s. I guess the Christy Clark government calls this progress in public education.
It gets worse, nothing says progressive quality public education in small towns like the situation in Osoyoos, BC where their only high school is set to close. Not to worry though, the plan may be to open it as a “private independent school”. More than 240 schools have been closed province wide since this faux Liberal government took charge in 2002, and it is not even close to being over yet folks!
www .osoyoostimes.com/school-closures-are-province-wide-crisis-communities-torn-as-hundreds-of-schools-closed-in-face-of-funding-shortfalls/
JGalt, in your dream world, a school closure would never ever happen, even if the student population dropped to 1!
In Prince George, numerous schools were closed due to small student populations.
Has the student population in Osoyoos been increasing or decreasing? If any, what effect has a declining student population had on the decision to close the Osoyoos school?
People seemed to get their education just fine in those rural one and two room schoolhouses of the first half of the 20th century, even when the teacher was off sick or had some other personal emergency. Those teachers often doubled as custodians, too. No janitorial staff. The elementary school I went to in the 1950’s wasn’t a one or two room school house, but had about a dozen classrooms, and ONE janitor kept the whole place up, as well as firing a coal powered boiler that provided heat when it was necessary. We had several mixed grade classes taught by ONE teacher. Of course they had something called ‘discipline’ back then. Corporal punishment hadn’t been outlawed, and when necessary any teacher could use a pointer for more than just pointing. And teachers looked and dressed like teachers ~ professional people. Today? Well, times sure have changed. And not for the better.
It was proved at the last election that there would be a couple of different people on that school board if there was a rural representative. I am appalled that after the requests to consider this they have turned up their noses. Our district is geographically large, meaning there is a lot of rural communities encased in it. I have been watching a few of them on their social media pages and pretty regularly the ex teachers are posting stuff about how teachers have it so hard and it is all the parents fault. Yep, that is what we needed to hear. I realize a lot of parents are well…crappy, and their babies do no wrong, but not all of us. I find it insulting. There is no place on a school board for teachers. Or ex teachers. We cater enough to them and not to the students. I am betting the school my kids attend don’t even spend all the money funded to it (Rural funding). I can say that because not so long ago we used that as the reason they could not shut down our school. It is up to the administration where the money is spent, there for it is so important to have that rural representation, make sure ALL of our students are getting what we can possibly give them. The fact that they are not even discussing it when it was actually discussed during election by Don Sabo, and now brought forward by the Mayor of Mackenzie with the backing of many RDFFG Directors. You were elected by the people and the fact that you don’t even consider it. That is an outrage. Disappointing.
“This as a staff report suggests transportation for such activities “is often cost prohibitive if the school is required to utilize the current bussing contractor” for the district.”
Well holy. This school district is one of the very few that contract out their bussing in this province. The majority of the school districts have their own buses and own drivers who get paid a lot more than the current “contractor”
The drivers that work for the districts are school employees with benefits etc and some work part time as a custodian unlike this school district.
So to use the excuse it is a prohibitive cost is wrong. Buy your own buses and hire your own people and see how prohibitive it will be.
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