RODIER: Retires - October 5th Edition

Challenges await new school trustees

Angie Mindus

Cariboo Advisor

School District 27 is losing a top trustee this year, one with 34 years of teaching experience and three terms served as a trustee and Board chairman at a time when his expertise could be put to test the most.

“It has not been an easy decision,” said Williams Lake fringe area Trustee Wayne Rodier, who announced last week that he would not be seeking re-election this November. “But it’s time to step back and see what retirement is like.”

It has no doubt been a challenging time during the nine years Rodier has served, with the School Board running community input sessions such as ‘Our Kids, Our Futures’ and emotional public consultations on potential school closures. However, Rodier acknowledges the new board, to be elected November 19, may face the biggest challenges yet as student enrolment drops and budgets tighten.

“The biggest challenge is going to be the budget,” Rodier said, explaining that the current board essentially bought themselves a year’s reprieve last year when they used up rainy day funds to save what they saw as critical programs, such as Reading Recovery, the rural secondary program (In which teachers teach Grade 8 to 10 academic classes, online, to students throughout the rural reaches of the district), rural school staffing, as well as the Professional Learning Communities program which helps teachers become better teachers through professional peer support under the leadership of the district.  These programs may be in jeopardy because of a lack of funding for the upcoming year.

Also on the potential chopping block in the years to come will be schools, he admits.

“It may be that our schools will look very differently five years from now, or some of them may be closed,” he said.

“Right now we have more spaces than kids and having excess space is expensive.”

Rodier said the district’s budget is essentially based on the number of students in the district, which is projected to continue to drop in the coming years.

“I think we have to do something with the two high schools in Williams Lake - that may mean a middle school or that may mean something else.”

Running two high schools as the district does now, Rodier said, is a problem.  The district can’t offer the extent of programming now that they could if all the high school students were together. It is also inefficient in terms of busing students back and forth.

He said another major issue will be simply getting everyone up to speed on all the issues, and quickly.

“It’s going to be a massive undertaking,” Rodier said of educating newly-elected trustees, noting critical decisions on budgets and potential school closures are going to have to be made soon. 

Also on the list of challenges is the board’s commitment to developing a ten-year plan for the district, something the current board has been unable to do. 

Rodier said the trustees could not come to agreement on high school configurations in Williams Lake, combining the high schools in 100 Mile House, and closing, restructuring or maintaining rural schools. There was also debate around the degree to which a long term plan should focus on facilities and/or educational priorities.

So, it is realistic to expect the new board to plough through work which the current board couldn’t complete in three years, in just four months?

“Some of it has to be done whether it’s realistic or not,” Rodier said.

“The board has to come to a balanced budget by the end of June and because of the union climate they work in, it actually has to be done by March.”

Those challenges are on top of the current teacher job action, which has already affected work in School District 27. The trustees voted last week not to have committee meetings without teacher representation until the labour dispute is over.

Rodier agrees the upcoming election is a critical one for the public to get involved in.

According the district office staff about 20 per cent of eligible voters voted during the last School District Trustee elections.

Besides Rodier, Pete Penner (who represents 108 Mile and Lac la Hache) announced at last week’s board meeting that he would not be running in upcoming trustee elections. Current trustees Heather McKenzie, Richard Elliott, Will VanOsch and Pattie Baker announced that they would seek re-election.  Williams Lake trustee, Bruce Mack announced he will also step down.

Sheila Boehm was the first trustee to officially file her papers for candidacy for the Williams Lake Fringe zone yesterday, while 150 Mile House mother Jackie Austin says she plans to make her candidacy for Zone 4 official next week.