Chronicles of a Rookie Green Party School Trustee (2002 - 2005)

An Ode to the Park Board

Tonight I'm going to break a little with tradition and devote the entire remainder of my energy to talking about what happens when tough decisions get ground through bad process. Maybe it's because misery loves company, maybe it's simply an attempt to rectify my butchery of a speech tonight. Hard to say but the little field that ate my life at Lord Kitchener is going to get a little more attention. Yes I'm talking about neighbourhood soccer.

Captain Process On Patrol

The sore butt meter indicates that we were in meetings for far too long today so I'm not going to prolong the agony by typing a long report tonight.

Trustee Al Blakey was in the chair today for the first part of the meeting as our chair, Trustee Adrienne Montani, was at UBC for the aboriginal student grade 12 graduation. Have to say that although Trustee Blakey is razor sharp on process when someone else is in the chair, his own chairing was a little shaky tonight. It was, on balance, more entertaining than perturbing though. It must be more than a little challenging to keep the lot of us in line at hour five of meetings for the day.

Grill the Trustee - First Edition

On Tuesday, May 27 I'll be available for grilling at my first town hall meeting since being elected last November.

Date: Tuesday, May 27th
Time: 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Place: Vancouver Public Library, Alma Van Dusen room
Address: 350 West Georgia, Vancouver

Provincial leader Adriane Carr and federal party representative in BC, Dave Ferguson will both be on hand as well to speak to issues at other levels of jurisdiction from a Green Party perspective. Thanks to the Vancouver-Burrard provincial constituency association of the party for organizing.

What the World Really Needs...

I don't watch alot of TV but I have to admit that one of my favourite truisms comes not from a visionary such as Martin Luther King but from a television commercial. This commercial claims that what the world really needs is a good night's sleep.

There are very few meetings I go to (and there are alot of meetings in my life) where I don't think boy if we met less and slept more, we would make much better decisions...

Post Budget Blues

Kudos to the Charter for Public Education crew for coming to wipe away our post-budget blues tonight.

After three months of intense public consultation, sharing the exhilarating successes and the heartfelt pains of our inadequately funded (and struggling to cope with even less funding for 2003-2004) school district, it would have felt like an emotional let down tonight even if we were opening up the Charlottetown Accord for reconsideration!

Yet hearing the report from the Charter for Public Education presented itself as a perfect transition back to "regular" board business...

Springtime - When A Young Board's Fancy Turns to Least Bad

As the issues get more difficult, I am noticing getting the blog written after the meeting does too. It's not just the time - there have been several weeks with 8-10 meetings in 5 nights (don't ask) - but more the circumstances of springtime school board decision-making focus on least bad instead of best.

Consider our decisions tonight.

War, Plague, Under-Funding and Over-Crowding

There are times when the responsibility of being an elected official feels a little heavy. Recently it's felt closer to apocalyptic. If it's not lurching from what-should-we-cut budget consultations to committee meetings on severe over-crowding in Roberts elementary it's coming home to see two horse riders of the apocalypse galloping across my TV screen and infiltrating my water cooler at work.

My First Motion

At Monday's board meeting I was very pleased to have my very first motion passed and thought I really should commemorate it on the blog. It's a little off topic from the central theme of education but being new and a one person party on a nine person school board, it hasn't been often that there is a charge to be led. I concede that years (weeks perhaps even) from now I will undoubtedly look back and think "that was my first motion???"

SARS Update

On Monday, March 31 the Board had a special update on SARS at the lead off to the regularly scheduled Committee III meeting. Superintendent Eric Thomas and Health and Safety Officer Collette O'Reilly briefed the board on the status of the VSB's response to SARS.

At the advice of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the VSB is not recommending quarantine for any individuals at this time who are returning from other countries or Toronto. This recommendation is based on three important points:

1) There have been no secondary transmission cases of SARS in BC: no person in BC has been infected with SARS because of contact with a person in BC.
2) There are no active cases in BC
3) No one is quarantined in BC

Because accurate and timely information is the only way to ensure the VSB can continue to respond appropriately, Ms. O'Reilly is communicating updates to schools, senior management and trustees on a daily basis regarding the best information available to health authorities . As of April 1, 2003 the board is endeavouring to make these updates available in seven languages.

My strong advice to parents is to not rely on media reports for information on SARS. In the absence of re-printing the direct updates from the World Health Organization or Centre for Disease Control, media stories have been at best misleading and in many cases inaccurate.

Please visit these sites directly as they provide daily updates from the health professionals who are charged with dealing with emerging global health issues:
World Health Organization
Centre for Disease Control
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority

The Happy Place

The tale of a pretty, red school and what happened when a stream became a trickle
(inspired by recent events at a Vancouver elementary school)
by Patti Bacchus

Once upon a time there was a pretty, red school that looked out over mountains and oceans and was filled with happy children and hardworking, kind and wise teachers. Each day the children and their parents would arrive happily at the school. Sometimes the parents would decide their happy school would be even happier ...