With K̓wsaltktnéws ne Secwepemcúl’ecw School District 83 covering a large geographic region, the board is looking at increasing its representation from five to seven trustees.
Supt. Donna Kriger brought a report to the March 11 meeting suggesting the change, with historic information on the board size and numbers from other similar sized districts.
She explained that in 1997 the government amalgamated SD21 (Armstrong), which had five trustees, with SD89 (Shuswap) which had nine. The newly formed SD83 continued with the nine until 2016, when the Ministry of Education introduced the Watson report recommending that number be reduced to five trustees.
Since then, SD83 is among 12 other districts in the province to have the lowest amount of representation. In comparing the district to others, Kriger looked at enrolment numbers and the geographic funding, which recognizes the distance and area covered.
“Those districts that then have only five trustees, you’ll notice that we top out all those districts with our geographic funding," she pointed out. "Which is a strong indicator to us that of all the districts that would only be functioning with five trustees, they are not required to travel nearly as much and the geography is quite a bit smaller.”
In recommending the move to seven trustees, Kriger said that while they could look at redrawing the electoral boundaries, that would be “a significant amount of work and come at a significant cost.” Instead, Kriger suggested it would make the most sense to add a trustee to the Armstrong area, and the other to Enderby/Sicamous.
Trustee Tennile Lachmuth, while in support of increasing the board to seven, wanted to get input from the public rather than telling them where the added representation would be assigned. The rest of the board agreed and will engage in public consultation while bearing in mind the deadline to submit a formal request to the ministry is Oct. 31.
