School boards a mystery to voters
Poll shows most Albertans can’t name trustees
A strong majority of Albertans can’t name their local school trustee and took an unfavourable view of their job performance, but still don’t want school boards to be eliminated, a new Herald opinion poll shows.
And while most respondents don’t think their trustees should be given taxation powers, they want their local boards — not the province — deciding when and where new schools should be built.
The online Leger poll captured the views of 1,686 eligible Alberta voters, including 526 Calgarians, over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The poll found that only 19 per cent of Calgary respondents rated the public school board’s performance as good or excellent, while the Catholic board fared better at 31 per cent.
In Calgary, only 20 per cent of respondents said their school boards are open and accessible to parents and taxpayers. That number was better in Edmonton, where 35 per cent of people believe their boards are transparent. In the rest of Alberta, 43 per cent of respondents said their school boards are transparent.
Despite the more upbeat numbers outside Calgary, the poll results point to a need for school boards across the province to make more of an effort to engage with Albertans, said Ian Large, vice-president of Leger’s Alberta operations.
“There’s probably an opportunity for the school boards to open the conversation with parents and taxpayers about what they’re doing with the system and to improve the quality of education in their area,” Large said.
While respondents ranked school boards low in areas of transparency and job performance, a majority said they don’t want to see school boards eliminated — though that sentiment is weaker in Calgary (where 56 per cent said they do not want to scrap school boards) than the province as a whole (64 per cent).
The relevancy of school boards has been raised during the election campaign, with some educators and former trustees arguing the role of school trustees was significantly diminished after the province stripped school boards of their taxation powers nearly two decades ago.
The poll found only a quarter of Albertans want taxation power returned to school boards. But more than half — 54 per cent — want to see boards decide where and when new schools are built.
“There’s always a sense that local decision-making is better than centralized decision-making,” said Large. “It stands to reason that the closer to home those decisions are made the better.”
Lori Williams, policy studies professor at Mount Royal University, said overall the survey results reflect the fact that voters pay less attention to school boards because fewer are directly affected.
“We don’t interface directly with these policies or with the trustees in the way that we do with city council,” Williams said.
“School board questions tend to be of greater concern when you have children in the K-to-12 system or about to go into the system,” she added.
“You’re going to be paying closer attention because it’s likely to have a more direct impact on you.”
Even then, most parents and taxpayers would be looking at the province, their kids’ school principal or teacher when issues arise, she added.
“There are so many other points of contact for the issues people deal with that it tends to diffuse the attention paid to the education file,” Williams said. “There are a lot of people that one associates with that and school board trustee may not be high on that list.”
That was clearly indicated with nearly three-quarters of respondents in Calgary unable to name their trustee — though it could benefit candidates challenging incumbents, said Large.
“It probably means that for the person who truly runs a strong, organized and effective campaign could unseat the incumbent merely by being top of mind,” said Large. “Because the incumbents aren’t top of mind.”
The provincewide poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For Calgary, the margin of error is 4.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.