Public education rally Sep 4

I would like to attend this rally but our board of trustees has an important meeting today that was planned in advance with required staff flying in to attend. This is the kind of work as SD#57 Trustees we should not miss.

I wish the Prince George District Teachers and BC Federation of Labour all the best with the rally. The government is playing games with education and students right now, and I think this is in part to do with money and part to do with avoiding the consequences of the Supreme Court case. 

As an individual trustee I will continue advocating for sustainable funding for education and better support for complex class composition. Although I usually find myself in a minority on local school district issues and decisions, in general I think our board does a good job advocating at the provincial level. Unfortunately we have little influence over the government, provincial funding or even the BC School Trustees Association. At this point the BCSTA seems to be playing it neutral or even pro-government. 

I believe our board of trustees has tried to put forward a more progressive stance that the one generally taken by the BCSTA, including opposition to the $40-a-day scheme and taking strike money out of the education system. Contact board chair Sharel Warrington (swarrington@sd57.bc.ca) for a complete list of the positions we have taken and letters sent. 

I believe all partners including trustees, parents, principals, and senior administration should be speaking out about the underfunding in education and impact on schools caused by the bad faith bargaining from the government. Teachers should not be the only ones taking the heat for the state of education, we all share the responsibility to make it better. Being married to a teacher and having children in public elementary school I am directly impacted by the strike. I have also seen this situation from a trustee perspective, knowing and seeing that our schools and staff struggle to meet the needs of students, having to take from one pot to fill another. Special needs students suffer as a result, as do all students in regular classrooms that have to become bigger and more complex to offset services to special needs students because the money is not there for both. Having a band-aid LIF fund to top up school services each year is not a solution and results in quick hires and no training. Principals and teachers need to know from year to year that they have the funding in place to design a whole school program that meets the needs of students.

busy month

Talk about lifestyle change! In a couple of months I've gone from stay-at-home mom to having two demanding jobs. In addition to my new role as school trustee, I've also been hired on to Canada Post as a mail carrier. Both jobs require training, so I've been burning the candle at both ends for a while, hopefully it slows down soon. The hardest part was realizing I won't often get the chance to drop off and pick up my daughter from school, and spend most days with my son.  He'll be in kindergarten next year, so this transition came a just a bit earlier than expected. The trustee orientation has gone well. We spent last weekend at the BC School Trustees Association academy. There were 418 trustees elected province-wide, 175 of them were new. That was the most ever turnaround, and the conference the best attended they've had. We discussed 21st century learning, team-building, the Ministry's agenda, and innovation. I tried to ask as many questions as would be tolerated, both to the PG team and other delegates. I'm still left with questions about 21st century learning, as it is not clear what it will look like when implemented, and there seems to be blind faith that technology will solve many problems. I think it can create new problems, too, and would not like to lose the human connection we have between students and teachers. I was expecting more government agenda and general brainwashing, but it was actually quite fair and delegates were able to ask tough questions. I wish I would have heard more about teacher contract bargaining, this was not discussed at all.