I attended the DPAC meeting on Thursday, April 7. I would like to thank school board trustees Bobbi Johnson and Michel Saab and director of instruction Carl Cooper for attending. The three of them faced a crowd of surprised, angry and hurt parents, grandparents, teachers, retired teachers and members of the community.
Now that all of this recent budget information is out in the open, everyone involved needs to begin working together to make things better. Blaming certain individuals and finger-pointing is not going to help the students in School District #83. As one member of the audience said at the DPAC meeting, “There needs to be open communication between all groups involved.” The School District central administrative staff, school district trustees and DPAC need to work together to make this a better school district. School District #83 staff and school board trustees have been told by parents and teachers for many years that they want more money put towards the students. Moving forward, this needs to be the number-one goal of School District #83.
There have been efforts recently by School District #83 to be more open with budget communication with the formation of a budget advisory committee made up of central staff, trustees, principals, students, parents and a PAC representative. As adults, it is our job to work together to provide quality education for all children in our community. On Thursday evening a grandparent and former teacher said, “The education system is the cornerstone of democracy.”
We have no choice here but to learn from the past to improve the school system for the future. I do realize there is decreased funding from the provincial government, but the adults in our local education system need to work together with open lines of communication and transparency to make student educational programs of School District 383 the first priority and to regain the trust of the entire community.
Suzy Beckner