What did you learn today?

Dear Editor:

At its annual spring conference during the weekend of May 2527, in Bromont, Quebec, the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) intends “to look for ways to better meet the needs of its nine member boards.”

Ideally, it should disband because the association has outlived its usefulness. Let’s analyze.

The QESBA came into existence in 1998/99, when boards went from being confessional (Catholic and Protestant) to linguistic (English and French).

The association cannot serve the boards’ needs because they are different as day and night.

At any rate, I recall in 1998, to get anything done between schools, organizations, and the government, took forever.

Today’s high-tech communication tools where everything is done in “real time,” the Internet has generally replaced the fax machine and paper letters. Email and texting are more popular than the telephone.

Consequently, parents today are more educated. After school, parents are more likely to ask, “What did you learn today?” as opposed to, “What did you do today?”

As far as student achievement is concerned, with or without the QESBA, our students do quite well.

This conference could easily be considered as a financial opportunity that could benefit all English schools, classrooms, and students in Quebec.

The boards should consider dropping their memberships to the QESBA.

Take the membership fees, and invest the funds of about $1,000,000 into their schools, and deal directly with the government.

Lastly, elected school boards are manned by commissioners, many of whom I have known for years.

They are, generally, smart and range from lawyers, business people, retirees, and so on.

This upcoming weekend they should ask themselves:

“What is it that QESBA does that we cannot do ourselves to benefit our students?”

Chris Eustace (retired teacher) Montreal