Trustee wants everyone to vote for Catholic and public school boards
EDMONTON Alberta voters should be able to cast ballots for both public and Catholic school board candidates, an Edmonton public school trustee says.
Trustee Cheryl Johner, who represents north Edmonton on the board, said her colleagues should ask school trustees across the province to advocate for the provincial government to amend the law to allow votes for both publicly funded school boards where their boundaries overlap.
“A lot of people don’t know what they don’t know. A lot of people don’t know that they’re funding Catholic school boards,” Johner said in a Wednesday interview.
“I just think it’s equitable if you can vote for whoever you like, because you’re paying for the system, why shouldn’t you have a say in the system?”
In 2018-19, Alberta Education is allotting $8 billion to school boards — $1.7 billion of that money is directed to Alberta’s 17 Catholic school boards, 14 per cent of which comes from Catholic property taxpayers. The remainder comes from the province’s general revenue.
Johner will introduce a motion for the public school board to debate Nov. 6 proposing the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta and Alberta School Boards Association lobby the municipal affairs minister to amend the law.
In a blog post this week, Johner said Catholic schools are accepting thousands of non-Catholic students, yet their families cannot vote for trustees or choose to support them with education property taxes.
“What I would hope is that the Catholics would also see the inequities,” she said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Education Minister David Eggen said he was interested in hearing more about the idea and did not rule it out.
Johner has heard from parents who are upset school bus fees at the district are slated to rise during the next four years while the Edmonton Catholic school board is reticent to share a yellow bus system with its sister board.
The districts share 25 buses this year, but the kids do not ride together.
A 2014 report said a shared transportation authority would save the boards at least $2.5 million a year.
The Catholic board said the savings are too meagre to justify the $1-million startup cost.
Public school trustee Michael Janz, who represents southwest Edmonton, said the board should look at the idea of broadening boards’ voter bases, as all taxpayers have a stake in school boards’ policy decisions, including vaccinations and competition for construction dollars.
“We’re still operating on a governance blueprint from the turn of the last century. But, yet, our schools have evolved and our programs have evolved,” he said.
Trustee Michelle Draper, who represents northeast Edmonton and is chairwoman of the public school board, said she’s concerned turnout for school board elections is already low.
In the 2017 Edmonton civic election, 32 per cent of eligible Catholic voters and 25 per cent of public school voters cast ballots for a school trustee, according to City of Edmonton data.
In a Thursday email, Draper said she doubts non-Catholics would be motivated to research their local Catholic school trustee candidates if they have no connection to the system..
Edmonton Catholic Schools referred questions to the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association (ACSTA). ACSTA president Serena Shaw declined to comment.