Questions staff, parents, and students should ask trustees

We are coming up to a School Board election on November 15th.  Here are some questions that I've thought of and some that have been suggested to me. Feel free to contact me if you have some more.

1. Why bother voting in local elections? What difference does it make?
2. Why is BC behind other provinces when it comes to funding? What has our school board done to show the need for stable funding from the province besides write some letters?
3. Why are our playgrounds so sparse? What would it take to get more trees planted or more variety in the landscaping and playspaces?
4. Are all of our partner groups (teachers, principals, support staff, etc.) free to advocate for their schools, students, and public education or do they have restrictions placed on them? How has the school board engaged these partners? Will the new Strategic Plan address this?
5. Why are so many busses so empty? What are some creative ideas for rethinking how to meet student transportation needs?
6. When is a school too big? How are we planning for the future? Should any of our closed schools re-open?
7. Why are iPads a banned purchase by schools for use with staff and students? How are we actually supporting site-based management and innovation?
8. How come new programs come and go without any data being collected about how they work and whether they are worth it? Do we have accountable spending?
9. What has been done to give rural schools the same learning opportunities as urban schools? How are we engaging their parents, students, staff, communities and the regional district?
10. What are we doing to speed up diagnosis of special needs students and the added funding that comes with it? Do we have enough support staff such as occupational therapists, psychologists, and speech pathologists to deal with the needs in our schools?
11. The new teacher contract has an Education Fund to hire more specialist teachers, will this meet the needs of students? How will we find out if we need more counsellors, learning assistance teachers, teacher-librarians and so on?
12. Does our school district website do enough to celebrate the good work that happens in our school district especially with the focus of the Canada Winter Games coming to Prince George?