A Prince George diversity event organizer slammed the school district for failing to respond to his calls for a meeting after being told he could no longer partner with School District 57.
Shawn Peters has planned diversity weeks in five local schools in the last two years and has been an anti-bullying and diversity advocate for the past 14 years.
At Tuesday's school board meeting, Peters asked for a meeting for trustees "to make a fair judgement" rather than "prevent me from continuing to do what I've done."
In March, weeks before Diversity Week was planned at two local high schools, Peters said he got an email from superintendent Brian Pepper saying the district no longer would be partnering with him on diversity events.
He said he had to cancel with 40 organizations who were lined up to come to Duchess Park secondary school, but the DP Todd event went through.
But now, it looks like he won't be involved in any future diversity week events at schools
"I want to save it," he said, after calling out trustees for failing to respond to respond to an early August email asking for a meeting and an explanation.
While Peters hinted at some tension, saying he'd been "upset" with the district, he said he didn't know why it made the move of "banning" him from planning future events.
After his presentation, Peters said he had no inkling of what prompted that letter, which is why he reached out to the board.
"The school district is not responding," said Peters, who also said his emails to Pepper after the letter went unanswered.
"It means either they think the district is way ahead (on diversity) or someone in the school district has a personal beef."
Chair Tony Cable said he would contact Peters by the end of the week to set up a meeting.
"You have done a tremendous amount of work over 14 years. As far as the emails we've just come out of a summer period," Cable said by way of explanation.
"I would be happy to work with you and I would be happy to arrange a meeting with whoever needs to be there."
While Peters was happy with the promise, he said he was sad he had to come to a meeting and that trustees "couldn't be bothered" to respond.
Peters said it's important conversations around race, gender, ability, bullying, LGBTQ issues and more.
"Students aren't getting educated about that."
