Go to bat for your school board
Re: “Your most important vote on Oct. 21,” by Catherine Ripley, Ideas, Oct. 2. Media have paid a lot of attention to school trustee elections this year. Previously, school board elections have been overshadowed by races for mayor and councillors.
Recently there have been articles about the Parti Québécois looking at abolishing boards and about the chaos of our overburdened educational system.
And in the Calgary Herald, Brenda Gladstone, chief operating officer of the Galileo Educational Network, said elected school boards have been rendered powerless and are a non-essential level of government that should be disbanded.
Gladstone suggests that superintendents should report only to the deputy minister of education.
Her comments raise the question: who has made school boards seem powerless? Have we, the community, rendered them powerless by not caring about school board trustees? Have the boards rendered themselves powerless by limiting their accessibility and handing over their authority to others?
Should school boards be abolished? My answer is an unequivocal no.
Removing school boards would effectively silence the voice of the parent, student and community.
When was the last time you were able to meet with a school superintendent, let alone a deputy minister, about the direction of education? The trustee’s role is intended to be more than opening and naming schools and rubber-stamping budgets.
Board trustees have an incredibly important job. They still have decisionmaking power, should they choose to use it.
Developing policy to guide education for a school division is not easy. Boards must be reporting regularly to the community.
Trustees are the voice of parents, students and the community for where education should go in the future.
The Education Act is relegating more local authority back to boards. They must take this authority, and we must recognize and utilize the voice we have through them.
If we allow ourselves to lose school boards, we give away our power to change and impact our children’s — and our province’s — future. So don’t listen to those who say school boards are not essential. Don’t let the role of trustees be murky and irrelevant. Heather Wall , Fort Saskatchewan