Elona Arnett is delighted voters have a choice of 16 candidates for school board trustee in the Nov. 19 municipal election.
That's in stark contrast to the 2008 election, when just eight candidates let their names stand for a seven-member board. Arnett's concerns about a similar level of disinterest in taking on the role of trustee on the new board convinced her to run for a seat.
"Halfway through the nomination process, the Citizen published a story that said only seven candidates had put their names forward for the election and that got me going," said Arnett. "Right then and there, my mind was made up. We can't let people get in by acclamation.
"I think it's wonderful what's happened this time, with 16 of us."
Trained as an accountant, Arnett is currently employed by the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George. She worked for 10 years managing First Nations financial affairs in northwestern B.C. with the Takla Lake and Nak'azdli bands.
One of her duties as a band manager was recruiting teachers and looking after school operations and budgeting for rural schools.
She'll never forget the time she offered the job of principal to a man from Ontario, who made the trip out for an interview but didn't quite reach his destination.
"We got him a ticket and he flew up from Ontario to Vancouver up to Prince George, rented a car and drove up to Takla, but I'm not sure if he made it all the way or not because we never saw him," Arnett recalls. "We heard from him the next day and he said he basically saw the community and turned around and went back to Prince George, got on the plane and went back home.
"That was a lesson learned there. Don't recruit from too far away."
Arnett also worked for a year with Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, the branch of the federal government department that oversees the country's commitments and obligations to First Nations, Inuit and Mtis.
At that time, her discussions on issues mostly involved federal deputy ministers and managers, not MPs.
She realizes shaping school
policy is a much different game.
She feels a growing sense of animosity between the provincial government and B.C. school districts, as demonstrated by the B.C. government's response to an Supreme Court ruling in April that found the provincial government unconstitutional in its dealings with teachers on class sizes and composition.
"When you're dealing with the province, it is so political, and you almost have to get by the political party that's in place before you get to the ministry people to get changes made," she said.
"[Education minister] George Abbott announced the class Organizing Fund Proposal [to deal with class sizes and composition] and they announced it as a nonnegotiable proposal.
"Using language like nonnegotiable is not very conducive to building strong relationships.
"In fact, it creates an us-versus-them attitude, and that gets you nowhere."
If elected, Arnett would investigate the possibility of splitting access to classtime for special needs students that would have one group attend school in the morning and the other in the afternoon.
"The issue of special needs has to be looked at," Arnett said.
"It's become a huge issue in the classroom and we have to look at more creative responses to that.
"Teachers are having more students in the classroom than the policy allows for and they don't have enough special education assistants assigned to them, so it's taking away from the other students in the class.
"[Splitting access] might keep the numbers of [special needs students] in the classroom down, as long as their learning education plan was still being met."
