The education system’s per-seat funding system is this term’s important battle to fight among the acclaimed Aspen View School Division trustees.
This year, Nancy Sand was acclaimed as Ward 1 (Northwest) trustee, Candyce Nikipelo was acclaimed as Ward 4 (Northeast) trustee, April Bauer was acclaimed as Ward 4 (Southwest) trustee and Donna Cherniwchan was acclaimed as Ward 6 (Southeast) trustee.
April Bauer, the only acclaimed newcomer, is filling a position that has been empty since March, when Patricia Pedersen resigned from the board.
“My focus has just been really to make sure that we have representation here in this ward and that electorate has an equal opportunity to be aware of policy and what’s going on lobbying-wise,” she said.
Bauer said he has been involved with school council and the school fundraising society for 13 years. She has two daughters in Grades 9 and 12 at Thorhild Central School.
“I’ve been keeping my apprised as the different things that are going on provincially in regards to education funding … as a parent it’s so important to just be aware of what’s going on in the school for your kid’s sake.”
“I am aware already at this point, having been friends with multiple trustees over the last 13 years, exactly what my role is going to entail as a trustee,” she added. “So I know that my advocacy as a parent is no longer the forefront for me.”
Bauer said the most important issue facing the school board is funding.
“There’s just a disconnect between provincial funding for urban centres and provincial funding for rural centres,” she said. “There’s just different needs out here.”
She said she is not running on an agenda, but focusing on giving her ward representation on the school board.
Bauer said she and her husband have farmed full-time for the past 20 years. She is a board member on the agricultural society and has been involved with the Lions Club, Thorhild library committee and minor hockey.
She said she grew up in Radway, left to study science at the University of Alberta Augustana, and moved back to the area and raised a family.
“I love the small school atmosphere,” she said. “My husband and I feel that that small-town atmosphere involved in a school for three- or four-hundred is much more beneficial (than urban schools) to a child’s education, in most cases.”
Donna Cherniwchan, who is a family-school liaison worker, was acclaimed for her second term as a trustee.
She said she comes to the school board from a family background of educators.
“I have three school-aged children right now and that probably prompted me the most to run for trustee, because I want to see that their quality of education is very good,” she said. “We do live in a small rural community and I think that, regardless of where you live – whether you’re in an urban centre or rural – you still deserve to have a quality education.”
Cherniwchan said the board must continue to fight per-student funding.
“Although it works well in urban centres, it’s not working for rural communities, so there’s issues in transportation, in plant operations and maintenance and in construction,” she said. “Because rural school divisions are faced with declining enrollments, and so that is definitely affecting our funding.”
Cherniwchan lives on a farm near Vilna and said she grew up in the area. She received a bachelor of science from the University of Alberta and moved back to the community.
She said her work as a family-school liaison worker has had a significant influence on her as a trustee.
“It’s important to see that there’s different sides to every story,” she said. “You can see that when a child is going to school, if they have strong supports at school as well as at home that child will be so much more likely to succeed in their school careers as opposed to children that may be struggling at home … Now as a trustee you can see that it’s simply having books in front of kids in a classroom. Kids need to have appropriate meals, they need to have parent support, they need to have good supports at school.”
Cherniwchan mentioned that, although she was acclaimed, it is an honour to sit on the board for another term.
“I don’t take my role in governance very lightly,” she said. “It’s a special role and I’m honoured to do it and I look forward to hearing from the community.”
Candyce Nikipelo’s youngest son graduated earlier this year from Boyle School but, going into her second term, she said she is still dedicated to improving schools.
“I still think that I’m current, I still think that I know all of the issues that are facing,” she said. “It’s hard to be a new trustee and have to learn things right from scratch. That little bit of experience and wisdom, going into a second term is really helpful.”
Nikipelo also raised funding as the biggest issue on the board’s plates and said an over decline in enrollment is furthering the problem.
“We try to keep all the money in the classrooms that we can, but it becomes more and more difficult every year when we have fewer students,” she said.
Nikipelo is a long-time Boyle resident whose entire immediate family graduted from Boyle School.
Her family operates a farm, which she said allows her time for council as she does not work a job she has to go into an office for.
Nikipelo said she is also president of the curling club.
Nancy Sand was acclaimed for the upcoming term after coming in on a by-election and serving two years.
“I was just getting the hang of it and I just thought I owe it to our communities to serve them and be a local rural voice for them,” she said.
Sand said she has lived in Hondo for twenty-eight years and put her children through Smith School. She said she has noticed a sharp decrease in enrollment over the years and noted a decline of 740 students from 2005-2016.
Sand said she is especially proud of the work the board has done in joining the Rural Caucas of Alberta Schools and giving students a voice by bringing them to Public School Boards of Alberta meetings.
“I just enjoy it, it’s so good to be out there with the people and the kids and just to bring back all the information of the changes that are happening at the government level,” she said. “They need that local voice, that local autonomy.”
