Osoyoos residents will have a chance to elect a new school trustee on Nov. 5 when a by-election is held to fill a vacancy left by departing trustee June Harrington.
Harrington has worked hard to represent Osoyoos. For a while this year, she was the lone voice on the board of School District 53 fighting to keep both our public schools open. We thank her for her many years of dedication.
Unfortunately, school board elections often don’t receive the public attention they deserve. All too often, positions are filled by acclamation because no new faces come forward to run. That happened in 2014.
Even when elections are held, voter turnout is often lower than it should be. We’re speaking after all about the people who make decisions affecting the education of our children.
This year’s near-death experience with Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) should be a wakeup call to Osoyoos residents about how important it is to have a strong and effective school board.
Unfortunately, the system is not well designed for rural areas and despite the reprieve won for OSS, it’s still possible for trustees from other communities to gang up against Osoyoos.
That’s all the more reason why we need strong trustees from this community to fight for our schools.
We’re pleased to see that three worthy candidates have stepped forward to run in the coming by-election.
It now behooves the community to question these candidates and engage them and to make a sound choice based on their ideas and vision – not necessarily their name recognition or personal popularity.
With all three candidates – Penny Duperron, Casey Brouwer and John Redenbach – it’s probably fair to say that each has different strengths and weaknesses, skills and experience and a different vision for education in our community and school district.
In recent weeks, as nominations were received, we have profiled the candidates in several editions of the Osoyoos Times.
We profiled Duperron on Sept. 21, Brouwer on Oct. 5 and Redenbach in our current issue.
We hope in coming weeks to talk to the candidates more and to give them an opportunity to tell residents of Osoyoos where they stand on local education issues.
It takes courage to run for political office at any level and all three should be commended for stepping forward.
None of the three have held elected office before, so we should cut them a bit of slack.
They’ve had different levels of involvement in education, whether it be serving on a parent advisory council, coaching school sports or graduating from OSS.
They’ve also had different levels of engagement in this year’s struggle to save OSS.
Please take the time to get to know the candidates and to question them politely about their views and experience.
And please make an informed vote on the by-election day of Nov. 5, or earlier at the Oct. 26 advanced poll.
