Dear Shirley Bond MLA,
I am writing you an open letter to express my disappointment that your only response to my letter directly to you was an auto-response that it would be forwarded on to Minister Fassbender. In that letter I asked that you take action, that you urge Christy Clark and this government to agree to a mediator, a media blackout and bring funding to the table to make a deal possible. Why did I ask you? Because Minister Fassbender has shown no intention of allowing these things to happen. Forwarding my letter to him is just as good as ignoring it.
Today on the line, Dick Harris MP, drove by and waved support to us. A Conservative MP, in a car clearly showing who he is and what he stands for, is displaying public support for us. If the Conservatives, who are further to the right than you ostensibly are supports our students, then how is it that our Liberals cannot?
Please do not continue to make this about the money. We all saw the ads with their faulty math (you can blame that on bad teachers if you like, it's not really a great excuse...).
Our schools are overloaded with students with severe social-emotional needs, but no counsellors.
Our schools are overloaded with students with poor literacy skills, but only part time teacher librarians.
Our schools are overloaded with students with special needs, but no resource teacher.
Our schools are overloaded with students with learning disabilities, but fewer hours for Learning Assistant teachers.
Our schools are simply overloaded with students. The classrooms are not built for 30 intermediate students. The industrial technology shops are not built to be safe with so many high school students. Yet that's what they have. You tout industrial technology as the future, but expect things to magically make their way there. You give tax breaks to corporations as an investment, but can't invest in our students, our future entrepreneurs, our future industry leaders. You look to the United States as a model for education, when they are one of the lowest ranked developed countries in the world.
Why?
This needs to stop. You are our elected representative. You are the person who can make a difference. You have influence, use it, exert it. Help make a deal happen, or be remembered next election as the person who did nothing.
Yours sincerely, trepedatiously hopeful, and all together irritated by this whole situation,
Joseph Jeffery
Prince George
