The thought of serving on an elected council to help establish school policies and act as a spokesperson for students, parents and teachers was enough to convince Kate Cooke to take her first run at politics.
As a mother of two young children and the wife of a secondary school teacher, Cooke feels she has the right qualifications to emerge from a pack of 16 trustee candidates at the Nov. 19 municipal election and lock up one of the seven positions on the school board.
She says teachers, especially during their current work-to-rule job action, are feeling a growing sense of disconnection from the school board and administration, and that is having a adverse effect on classrooms.
"I think it's led to a lot of teachers being isolated in trying to be proactive and creative in their teaching," said Cooke. "If there's any way to bridge those gaps, I want to do that. I'm hoping I can advocate for teachers with policy and make it easier for them, so what they can concentrate is educating our children.
"Most teachers I talk to tell me they love teaching children, and that's part of their job they never get tired of. It's trying to deal with policy and administration that they find really tiring. I think the hands of principals are getting more tied, so they can't fight and advocate for their schools as much as they used to."
The seven school closures announced in March 2010 and how that process was handled by the current board fueled Cooke's desire to seek a trustee position. At the time, her oldest child was attending the French immersion program at College Heights elementary school when trustees, faced with a $7 million budget shortfall, decided to scrap the dual-track French programs at College Heights, Spruceland and Austin Road schools and centralize them in what is now called cole Lac des Bois. Cooke and her husband helped spearhead the More With Less report, which outlined alternative cost-cutting measures and was presented to the board during the 60-day public consultation process. But they were unsuccessful in their attempts to keep the immersion program going at College Heights and Cooke said she was left with sense the board wasn't open to new ideas.
"When we started to do research we were looking at different school districts and Kamloops had this very open policy with the public and Prince George was the exact opposite," Cooke said. "Parents were making these incredible presentations and they were doing research from every angle possible to find ways the school board could save money and keep our schools open. It was hard for parents to get information because there wasn't much response, and that was a big eye-opener for me. There was no hint what we were doing was worthwhile or not."
