School Board Candidates – Week 2

WARD 3

 

Joyce Bazant

The three key issues are funding and resources, student focus, and flexibility for school boards.

Funding:  Alberta Education is the sole source of funding for our education system. They should adequately fund and supply sufficient resources to address class size issues and programming.  School boards need the funding to guarantee they can successfully provide the programming needed to educate all students.  All costs for changes to the education system and employment contracts need to be fully funded by Alberta Education.  When the Alberta government reneges on its promises, such as not funding the teacher’s contracts, this forces Boards to take money from the classrooms and this translates to fewer teachers.  Boards can’t afford these costs and should not be forced to take dollars intended for programming and use it elsewhere.

Student Focus:  All changes made to the education system must increase opportunities for students to be more successful in school by improving, not diminishing, the educational resources for students.  School Boards need assurance, continuity and support to provide management and future planning for student learning. All levels need to improve their focus on student achievement and student success.

Flexibility:  All school boards, as locally elected governors of their individual local K-12 education system, need the flexibility necessary to implement, govern and administer all aspects of our education system within parameters of education.  Since government took over taxation and allotment of funding to school districts based strictly on student numbers, it makes it difficult for boards to do long range planning for buildings, staffing, etc. This limits a board’s ability to provide equitable educational opportunities between the higher and lower densely populated regions of our division.

During my time as Trustee, I have worked for these key issues and they will continue to be my top priority.

Joyce Bazant 403-934-3860

 

Janet Bolinger

RURAL EDUCATION IN WHEATLAND COUNTY

Whether you live in Strathmore or rural Alberta, parents want their young children to attend the neighbourhood school. The reasons are obvious: walking to school or a shorter bus ride, emotional security, time for extra-curricular activities, parent volunteering in the school, etc. Let’s maintain and right size as many rural elementary schools as fiscally possible. The Town of Strathmore collects $4,294,562 in school taxes; the County of Wheatland, including the villages of Standard, Rockyford and Hussar, collects over $9,000,000. Until 1995 education taxes were levied locally. Now, provincial funding is based per student, severely impacting rural schools.

One solution for high school does not fit all in this County. Strathmore, the largest centre, unfortunately is not the geographic centre. Standard, the only other high school includes students from Gleichen-Cluny, Hussar and Rockyford school attendance areas. Some from these areas choose other schools for various reasons, but mainly it is the location of their home. 

 RURAL BUSSING

Long bus rides across the county are an issue; frustrated parents, unable to get a response from the School Board, are turning to their County Councilor. Wheatland County is a separate entity, responsible for municipal affairs, with no jurisdiction over the School Board. Trustees must listen to concerns; cost is not the only issue as long bus rides can impede an education. Student safety must come first.

TRANSPARENCY

I had concerns when I read the Golden Hills School Board goes in-camera for the first hour of each meeting. There is no need to go in-camera unless it is a personnel issue. A good board must have honesty, integrity and trust from all the stakeholders. As a representative, you are entrusted to oversee the education system, ensuring the education dollar is spent wisely for the benefit of all students, and students have a healthy, caring, safe learning environment.

 

Larry Tucker

I must first apologize for missing my introduction in last week’s issue. Because of a misunderstanding on my part I failed to submit one to the Times.

As a short introduction, I moved to Strathmore in 1975 and taught in Cluny for three years and then transferred to Samuel Crowther.  I’ve been here ever since as a teacher of high school sciences, a counselor and finally as an administrator.  I retired two years ago as the principal of Wheatland Elementary.  I’ve been married to Kathy for 26 years and have two children that have gone through our school system and on to university.

The reason I am running for the school board is to simply give back to this community after all the support it has given me throughout my career.  I believe that my 32 years of experience in our school system could be quite helpful in the decision making process.

Issues I see as current priorities include: -The east Wheatland situation, perhaps the most sensitive and highly charged issue to come along in years.  We need to find some sort of compromise that will attempt to at least partially satisfy all of the stakeholders in our rural communities. -The numbers of students in some of the classes in our schools, especially the larger center ones.  Our provincial Government spent a great deal of money studying the needs of Alberta schools and adopted a number of recommendations including what I believe is one of the most important factors in student success.  We need to remind the government of their obligation to fund what are in fact their own priorities. -The need to attract and retain excellent teachers for our future needs.  There are grave predictions out there that with the impending retirement of the “baby boomer” generation we are about to face a critical shortage in qualified teachers.  We need to devise ways of making teaching in our rural communities more attractive for new teachers leaving university.

 

 

WARD 5

 

Corey Fisher

I believe the three key issues for the upcoming election are as follows. Putting public back into public education, rural school challenges and class size issues.

I feel school boards need to do a better job engaging the public. Boards need to involve citizens in program development, use mutually agreeable two way communication and share decision making and responsibility for decisions. We need to clearly communicate with the public success stories and any changes and what these changes will mean for students and parents.

Most rural schools in Wheatland County, Golden Hills School Division and the Province of Alberta face challenges. A major concern around rural schools is declining enrollment because there are not as many farm families as there was twenty years ago and farms are getting larger. Since the Provincial Government funds School Divisions on a per pupil basis this means rural schools aren’t sustainable. We need to lobby the Provincial Government to fund rural schools differently than our urban neighbors.

Class size issues are a concern for every school within Golden Hills School Division.  With larger schools having classes with upwards of thirty students.  Small rural schools facing triple grading (grades 1, 2 & 3) in the same classroom. They will only have one teacher because there maybe only five students in each grade. 

 

Robert McKay

Was unavailable as of press time.

 

Shelly Neal

What are the three key issues for the upcoming election?

Trust of School Board – Many parents with children in rural schools no longer trust that GHSD will provide their children with a safe, stable environment. They have seen closures, with no sound basis for the closure, and then students transferred one grade at a time to avoid an actual closure. The school board said schools will retain K-6 and yet they do not provide enough teaching and support staff to do this. Parents move their children because of this uncertainty, which means less kids in small schools, overcrowding in larger schools and more children leaving GHSD altogether. It is a snowball effect that must stop. As a Trustee I will be open and honest with parents and communities. The school board needs to listen to parents, as ultimately it is the parents who will decide where their children are educated. Parents will always put the needs of their children and family before anything else.

Rural Education – We need to focus on how to sustain our schools, not how to close them. We need to evaluate how to deliver High School education to rural students and recognize that our K-9 students are receiving a quality education. The provincial government provides additional funding to rural schools that are more than 25km apart and every single rural school in GHSD qualifies for this funding, although GHSD chooses not to give it to them.

Class Size – Funding for schools needs to be provided by program, not by student number. Placing teachers in the classroom is the best thing that we can do for our children. We have seen what can happen in schools when teachers are removed; triple graded classrooms and large student numbers in single graded classrooms.

Program based funding would help to solve both the rural education and class size issues.