A former Chilliwack school board member is seeking a trustee seat in Prince George.
Sharon Bourassa, 44, was a trustee in the Fraser Valley community from 2005 to 2008 when, she said, that district went through its own share of turmoil.
"We didn't have school closure issues but the issue we did have was that the growth was not where it was expected to be, so we had to do a lot of boundary and catchment area changes," Bourassa said Friday.
"That can be quite contentious and what we did was we had a lot of public consultation, we had a lot of input from the stakeholder groups and I think that's what helped the transition go a lot more smoothly."
An operational compliance auditor with B.C. Lottery Corporation, Bourassa has one daughter, now in Grade 12 at College Heights secondary school.
They moved to Prince George three years ago when in search of a less busy, more affordable lifestyle and to live in a city with its own university.
Up until two months ago, when she remarried, Bourassa had been going by the last name Turpin. Her husband, whom she met in Prince George, has three grown children from a previous marriage.
She ran for school board in 2005 after moving from Burnaby where the school her daughter was attending had "very, very high standards" to Chilliwack where the school's standards "weren't quite so high."
"It really bothered me that there was such a disparity," Bourassa said.
Given her skill set, Bourassa chaired the finance committee in Chilliwack where she introduced a public consultation process as part of setting the budget.
"We had three workshops that were strategically timed so we could get this input before the numbers were put in the budget," Bourassa said. "It was an open forum for anybody and everybody to attend and to provide input as to where they want to see the fund go."
Bourassa emphasized that finance was not her sole focus saying a good trustee is one who can "weigh the facts and make decisions."
"I'm not a one-issue trustee, I don't have an agenda," she said.
She sees the need to provide proper busing while trimming a $500,000 overrun on the service and providing teachers with more assistants and other support for special needs students as the top issues in School District 57.
And she believes the board needs to be "more aggressive" in making the provincial government aware of the district's needs.
"I really do have a passion for education," she said. "I'm always taking courses, I'm always looking at educating myself further, I'm always talking to my daughter's friends about how their education is going and I'm a big, big promoter of furthering education."
There will be at least two new faces on the board by the time the votes have been counted on Nov. 19 as Lois Boone and Roxanne Ricard have both said they won't run for re-election. Chair Lyn Hall has said he'll announce his plans early next week and Sharel Warrington has not yet declared. Incumbents Rhonda White, Trish Bella and Valentine Crawford have all said they will seek another term on the board.
Nominations are not yet being accepted. That begins on Tuesday and lasts until Oct. 14. Candidates then have until Oct. 21 to change their minds and withdraw and election officials will also make sure those who've run in the last election filed campaign expense and contribution forms. Those who did not are disqualified from running in this election.
Dates for all-candidates meetings have not yet been set.
