School trustees Betty Baxter, Pammila Ruth, Dave Mewhort, Lori Pratt, Christine Younghusband and Lori Dixon took their oath of office on Dec. 9. The trustee who garnered the most votes, Greg Russell, was unable to attend the ceremony.
Baxter, who was re-elected chair at the meeting, said Russell was away due to a minor surgery scheduled that day.
She said School District No. 46 tried to change the date of the swearing-in ceremony to have it before Russell’s surgery, but said the election act wouldn’t allow it.
“We couldn’t do it any earlier than this day,” Baxter said.
Secretary treasurer Nicholas Weswick will ensure Russell takes his oath of office within the next 30 days, which is allowable under the election act.
Baxter said she expects Russell to be back at the board table in the New Year.
Board priorities for 2015 include more community involvement in strategic planning for the school district, better communication and creating more partnerships, Baxter said after the swearing-in ceremony.
She said during the first few months the new board will be trying to learn, “What does the public want different from the school board that we haven’t addressed in the past?”
She noted a major challenge for the school district is finding more funding for new programs, so Baxter plans to have the board look at creating more partnerships in 2015.
“The only way we can expand and meet community needs is having partnerships with others and what we can bring is expertise and our facilities. That’s all we have,” Baxter said.
On the topic of communication, Baxter said she plans to create a blog on the school district website to help keep the community up to date.
“I can let people know what’s going on, what our priorities are and what progress we’ve made so we don’t always have to wait until a formal accomplishment to give people an update,” she said. “So it’s kind of closing that loop on communications that I’m really going to try to work on this term.”
