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Jun 20, 2022 at 2:21 pm
School Trustee 73 - TEA1
Kamloops and District Labour Council asks:
What do you believe are the critical issues facing your community and school district?
Candidate Answers
Not listening to Science!
1) School should not start earlier than 0930.
2) Children learn most effectively when they're not hungry! That's why I want to create a free year-round breakfast and lunch program: https://dlk.ca/meals-for-children/
3) There needs to be more breaks (recess) to play and relax.
Safety. Health safety. Housing safety. Education safety. Street safety. We need IHA to fix our hospital and public health systems. We need good affordable safe housing for everyone. We need our schools to be safe and that means fewer portables, replacing aging structures, building schools to deal with overcrowding. We need our judicial system to address the existing catch and release police work with. We need treatment centres for people who need help. I could go on but basically it all comes down to a safe and livable community and we need senior levels of government to do their parts achieving this too.
*Critical issues in our school district is the lack of practical education to prepare students for life outside of school.
*Water pollution is another serious threat.
*Crime and homelessness
Critical issues facing SD73 at this time are space issues and a need for capital funding. In addition Teachers, Teachers On Call, Certified Education Assistants, Aboriginal Education Workers as well as other specialty staff positions are experiencing worker shortages that are an issue within our district. We have faced increased challenges in our district over the last two years and it is essential for us to continue to foster an environment that Ensures all students, parents and staff are welcomed into our education system feeling safe and accepted and able to thrive.
Issues within our community are the Overdose crisis, homelessness, mental health and substance use concerns, crime and the impacts of many social issues on community members and local businesses. These issues are also have impact within our school communities.
Critical issues facing our school district are the retention of unionized workers (teachers, support staff, CEA), lack of capital projects happening, and many schools being well over max capacity.
In terms of community issues, the number one concern I believe is homelessness and our streets. Having worked as a Community Services Officer (bylaw) in Kamloops, I can not think of anything else that is creating such problems for our city and its tax paying residents.
Past decisions on school closures, and the fact that past governments slashed the teacher student ratio. So we are now scrambling 10-12 years later to catch up on both fronts. We will assist in identifying and securing future school sites with SD73 for lands from private owners.
We also have to fix the issue of Sun Rivers and Tobiano residents and students using our schools and hospitals, but paying no taxes into the tax base for them to operate.
That has to change.
1) Our social fabric has been severely strained over the past few years with Covid, the fires, Le Estcwey (the missing), the floods and now the economic uncertainty with rapidly rising inflation.
2) The need for new schools in Kamloops as surrounding communities. Our schools are overflowing leading to suboptimal learning conditions and our buildings are old. We need a substantial investment from the provincial government in new schools for our district.
3) Additional supports for students. Differentiated and individualized education requires a lot of work from teachers and support staff as well as resources. When funding lags inflation, supports and programs don't meet the needs of students creating inequities within our system.
The critical issues facing Kamloops include:
1) Shelter - affordability is starting to drift away from many residents;
2) Safety and Security - we lead the province in per capita toxic drug deaths in 2021, we need to change the trajectory;
3) Sustainability - we need to take climate action seriously to protect our environment and community for our children;
4) Spending - I worry a new cycle of inflation will impact the purchasing power of the City and of residents.
This was answered in an earlier question on 3 critical issues. I am not knowledgeable about the school district and will leave it to be answered by the school trustee candidates.
School district: insufficient funding to meet our demand.
Community: safety, homelessness, and drugs.
These are not exclusive points, but rather very related. Homelessness and drug addiction does not happen overnight. It is our responsibility to ensure that children are safe and well supported to succeed.
I want to work with our community to make our schools and surrounding areas a safety priority and engage our at-risk youth to ensure they are supported both in and outside of our schools.
The intersection of a housing crisis and escalating social issues (mental health, addictions, homelessness, crime) is currently our most pressing issue.
Housing: We need to listen to builders telling us that arbitrary/blanket requirements, inefficient processes, and unnecessary bureaucracy are barriers to building the attainable homes our population needs.
We must implement creative ways to cut red tape, change arduous zoning, and decrease permit processing time. Co-operative housing, multi-family housing, and other entry-level housing is necessary. We need options for the Missing Middle.
With only 3% of available land to build on in Kamloops, we must unlock it. The Chamber of Commerce has put forward a Land Trust policy document proposing a “robust mechanism for ecological land donations” – these are the kinds of solutions to seek.
Additional considerations include maintaining awareness that industrial land must be preserved for business development, and that social housing and its occupancy should be regularly inventoried.
Social issues: Addressing housing effectively will begin alleviating some of the pressing issues facing our community, but others require an approach that interconnects/consolidates wrap-around services and/or removes the greatest impacts to the public.
Evidence shows we can’t warehouse people in buildings and expect change to occur; we need policy that regulates the disbursement of tenants of supportive housing, prioritizing units for those seeking recovery.
Let’s examine the execution of harm reduction (meant to be 1 of a 4 pillared approach: treatment, harm reduction, education, and prevention) and rebuild strategies to improve the devastation of addiction/overdose by working with qualified service providers/social service agencies.
Furthermore, city council should work with/advocate to other levels of government to aggressively discontinue “catch and release” and enforce consequences for prolific offenders.
Finally, let’s find practical ways to build the connections that inspire individuals at the neighbourhood level to build community and feel less alone.