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The work of trustees; the responsibility of community


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#1 think local

think local
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Posted 31 October 2008 - 07:28 PM

This article is written by Eden Haythornwaite, a Community Alliance for Public Education incumbent trustee from the Cowichan Valley. She and the community alliance are a inspirational lot, always at the ready to stand up in support of good quality public education. My hope is that this community is ready to engage in trustee elections and hold the successful candidates for protecting and restoring quality public education.


The work of trustees; the responsibility of community

By Eden Haythornthwaite
I have been a trustee in Cowichan for three years this fall and prior to that, I worked closely with my son Gabe when he was a trustee—it was during his time at the board table that the Community Alliance for Public Education was established. I ran as a CAPE trustee on the ballot in 2005.
Earlier this year at the BCTF Public Education Conference “Equity & Inclusion,” Doug Player expressed bewilderment that there was not more moral outrage from trustees—why has there been so little opposition to the decline of public education—productive or otherwise, even from those who were elected on the understanding that they would defend our schools? It is an urgent question. The role of administrators who dominate the board rooms and have little interest in the process of participatory democracy is the fundamental problem. We have to understand this role and the effect this has on decent people who would like to fulfil their role as elected representatives with more vigour.
A civil society should have the highest expectations of those they send forward to represent communities. However, how do we support them, what is our wider responsibility, and who should we send forward to do this job?
At a time when we need the best, we often have no one or those who are unsuitable. Should we settle for the lesser of evils (or as we say in CAPE, the evil of lessers), should we project our values onto people that reflect our hopes and beliefs but are not actually present in their politics? Should we try to please everyone, should we make excuses, should we hope for the best when our experience has already endowed us with the basis for knowing better? Should we make the same mistakes repeatedly and watch our efforts fail everyone?
The first compromise is the worst—that of supporting candidates we know will not likely do the right thing at the board table. How many people have worked to get trustee candidates elected who they thought would at least be better than nothing and wound up with elected reps who once they sit at the board table, make Hitler sound like John Ralston Saul?
The next error is failing to provide the support humans need to do their best.
If you elected people and then hit cruise control, you will be very disappointed. Look around this province, and despite the clear assault on the funding, governance, and philosophical attributes of public education, we have had virtually no uprising against this tragic undertaking.
As progressive, independent-minded trustees will not be in the majority, they must have continuing support in order to build a program to defend our schools. Trustees have a host of responsibilities but it is crucial that those who choose to secure their election recognize their own role in backing up their candidates with ongoing community work long after election day is over.
There are a few elements that we have followed in CAPE and we encourage others to do likewise according to their own fashion. We have made a good start but are only a short way along our road.
  • Build unity within the school community groups and oppose the divisive behaviour often encouraged by administration. There is no earthly reason for families and employees to be at odds and certainly, each school community has a duty to view their fate as tied to the collective well being of the other schools.
  • Recognize the critical difference between administrators and elected reps. It is the express duty of elected trustees to examine, review, modify, and create policy by which the district will be governed. The people have elected trustees to represent them—not to act as handmaidens for senior administrators who are chiefly political operatives for the Ministry of Education.
  • Proudly sustain your non-aligned, independent status. Autonomy from wider party concerns frees you to act decisively and with principle. Remember, that regardless of who is in Victoria, we will always need community representation that puts neighborhood needs ahead of all other considerations. Do not diminish the merit of local political work—your efforts around school board do matter. School board politics are not just dress rehearsals for the real thing. They are the real thing.
  • You must develop a platform that becomes your program—a platform that you and your trustees are committed to for the mandate. Not some boilerplate convention but a living, breathing blueprint that will change the world for the better. There is no excuse for asking your community to vote for a loosely developed series of mottos and platitudes. Argue the merits of your views with clarity and vigour—not everyone will agree with you but they will know what your presence at the board table will look like. Your community deserves this firm pledge and your trustees will have the advantage of a roadmap and a means to chart their way through difficult terrain, safe in the knowledge that they will do what they were elected to do and that they will have the support of a platform to bind their work.
Finally, you need a small, vocal, energetic, organized group to support your trustees. This support will give them courage and strength; buy them drinks, hold their hands, help with the reading and research, organize events and responses in the papers, and attend board meetings.
Because, with the full force of loyalist trustees, senior administrators, and other helpful underlings raining down on them, most people simply cannot be expected to function for the best, and soon the progressive trustee either shuts up or learns to moderate their thinking to avoid being abused.
However, with a gallery of supporters there to buoy up their efforts, ask embarrassing questions, make unfortunate noises, your trustees are an unstoppable force and can bear anything.
Working outside the boardroom is the only way to do what is right. It is not so hard to vote the right way but it will be a minority vote. Outside the boardroom and among your fellows, however, you can build the reality you cannot hope to vote into place. Have the spirit to organize in the community to secure support for your positions, supply analysis, and encourage others to participate by providing shelter. I think the lesson here is that as there are no super heroes in politics; we should plan and work co-operatively.
So we can now prepare for November and beyond. Our progressive trustees with the support they deserve, courageous and firm of conviction standing shoulder to shoulder with their neighbours, could even change the weather if they dared to do so. I believe that.
Now the question is: What do you believe?
Eden Haythornthwaite is a school trustee, Cowichan School District.

 



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