ParentsVoice candidates in Vernon: Jewlie Milligan, Nellie Villegas and Sylvia Herchen. (submitted photo/Facebook/Sylvia Herchen)

By Pete McIntyre

elections 2022

Group slammed by union says it’s concerned about process in schools, not policies

Oct 13, 2022 | 3:00 PM

A political group that is backing several school board candidates in Vernon and Kelowna, is fending off criticism that its agenda is to push for anti-vaccine and anti-inclusion policies in schools.

ParentsVoiceBC (PVBC) is supporting 28 trustee candidates in eight school districts, including seven hopefuls in School District 22 Vernon and District 23 Central Okanagan.

The North Okanagan Labour Council issued a news release this week, “denouncing the aggressive rhetoric and policy positions” of ParentsVoiceBC.

“This organization was started by a Catholic political activist in Abbotsford, and is currently running candidates in 28 school districts in an effort to “take back our schools [slogan used by the group],”‘ the labour council’s news release stated.

The council, which is made up of 30 private and public unions, said “the group’s agenda is to advance anti-LGBTQ+, anti-inclusion, anti-vaccine, anti-SOGI123 and anti-Truth and Reconciliation views and policies within our school communities.”

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The NOLC is encouraging its supporters to not cast votes in favour of “the harmful policy and rhetoric positions embraced by ParentsVoiceBC candidates, and others, and to instead vote for candidates who support human rights and inclusion in our schools.”

Fritz Radandt, campaign manager for ParentsVoiceBC, told Vernon Matters they are most concerned about giving parents and the community more say into school board issues.

“A union’s job is to fight for higher wages and better benefits for the employees they represent. But parents are the primary educators of their children and the reason school boards exist in the first place. Therefore, ParentsVoice BC advocates for two specific changes: greater transparency in the decision-making process; and greater parental and community input,” Radandt said.

Radandt said, based on that, if parents in a school district through a fully-informed decision-making process want to implement a specific initiative, his group supports that.

“If parents in another district, following the same process, arrive at the opposite conclusion, we support that too. Local ParentsVoice BC candidates are concerned about process, not individual policies. PVBC itself takes no position on any single issue,” Radandt said.

The three Vernon area ParentsChoice candidates, Sylvia Herchen, Nellie Villegas and Jewlie Milligan, were criticized by some people on social media for not attending a forum for the trustee candidates on Oct. 3 in Vernon.

Herchen told iNFOnews that she didn’t show up so she wouldn’t be the “target of leading questions.”

The ParentsChoice-backed candidates in the Central Okanagan are Laurie Bowen, Tovey Demman, Teresa Docksteader and Chris Fieber.

by Pete McIntyre

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