By Tom Mark

Public Comment Sought For Shuswap School Trustees Election

Oct 31, 2017 | 11:59 AM

People in the North Okanagan-Shuswap are being invited to give their ideas on how to elect a new school board next year.

Official trustee Mike McKay has started the process with partner groups but wants public input before making a final recommendation.

Various options are listed on the school district’s website.

“The status quo first of all to say what people think of that. Then three options around a seven trustee configuration and three options around a five trustee configuration.”

The Special Advisor’s Report of June, 2016 did recommend a reduction in the number of elected trustees from nine.

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McKay says a working group has rolled out a lot of ideas.

“Which resulted in us putting those options that are on the website together. Some other ideas as well, but we don’t want to close the book and say these are the only ones. Which is why one of the options on the website is to say to people: Do you have a different idea?”

He admits there is a lot for people to take in.

“It’s something that has been talked about previously. Prior to the last election the board of the day rolled some of this information out there and started to discuss it but didn’t move forward. It’s not new.”

McKay says what has become obvious is it is best to stay with a ward system.

But he stresses individual trustees will be part of an overall governance body, not just taking the interest of their particular district into account.

As for background and experience of candidates, the June 2016 report of Special Advisor Liz Watson referenced some of the skill sets that are useful around finance, human relations, governance, public relations and community relations.

McKay says while important, the reality is the way things are currently structured, the people who stand for office and who are elected for office don’t require a particular skill set or the board as a whole isn’t required to cover the entire spectrum around the skill sets that a corporate board might have.

Public input will be accepted until December 8th.

Mike McKay hopes to have a report put together for the Education Minister before Christmas.

To see details of the various options you can access the link:
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=pP-hhz-WDkWNkBVd542b5aT2DeLdxmVNu0cc9Vqol2tUMFBEU0dRSFRMSU5JWTJVT01KTTNaU09IVy4u

You can also send an email with your thoughts on the subject to trusteefeedback@sd83.bc.ca .

by Tom Mark