Editor:
I read Sophie Woodrooffe’s Jan. 17 report on our local school board’s consideration of free supplies for secondary students with some interest, but the key point for me was in the final sentence, where she noted: “The board also heard from education assistants, who suggested the money should have been spent on hiring support staff instead.”
Those on the front line know where the surplus funds should be directed because it has been obvious to them for some time now that the need is for additional support staff, especially for special needs students.
This is one more example of why we should be examining the very existence of school boards in this day and age, especially since they now give themselves regular pay increases. For what?
This paper had a Question of the Week in 2016 that asked, “Do you agree with the school trustees’ decision to give themselves an eight per cent wage increase?” The response was an 84 per cent NO. I doubt that response has changed.
The original role of school boards was to bargain salary and conditions with teachers. That role was passed to the province in 1994, but trustees simply created new “responsibilities,” most of which could and should be addressed by the District Management Team and the unpaid Parents’ Advisory Committees (PACs) that already exist at each school. I believe that the unpaid, informed and nurturing PAC members have a far better idea of the needs of their individual schools, in addition to the established Ministry of Education curricula, and probably also have a better idea of how to meet those needs. Even in this small school district, each school has its own distinct composition and nature so it makes more sense to encourage individual schools to adopt and develop additional policies that are important to their community.
The number of school boards in B.C. was reduced bit by bit to the present number of 60. Gordon Campbell, in his day as premier, talked of reducing the number further by consolidation, but is consolidation enough or is that one small step towards the inevitable – the dissolution of school boards altogether?
Colleen Elson, Gibsons
