IT’S NOT often candidates for public office are thanked for their willingness to take part in the democratic process but it’s time to single out one group – those running for a seat on the Coast Mountains school district.
For more than a decade, the school district has dealt with declining enrolments resulting in fewer schools, fewer teachers and fewer resources.
As anyone in the private sector knows, a decline in a company’s financial fortunes is brutal and ultimately can harm the company’s products and services and sap the morale of even the most hardy group of employees.
To manage with less within the confines of a school system which has the responsibility of providing students with the tools for success has to be a difficult if not almost impossible task.
While the job of educating students falls primarily to the creativity, patience and stubbornness of teachers, the school district board needs to set the tone for the task at hand. Successes and miracles happen everyday in classrooms across the district and it is the school board’s job to provide in which they take place.
Balancing what must be at times confusing and contradictory signals from the provincial government, which holds the purse strings and which has the final say in many areas of school district operations, with the need for calm and rationale governance cannot be easy.