Catherine Wilson

Our first public school trustee visits the Porch. Catherine Wilson stops in to discuss her campaign. She and Brian discuss the state of the current teachers strike and the challenges facing students and teachers in the Medicine Hat Public School Division.

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Transcript

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As a board, we really believed in local bargaining. Our local needs are met here. We know about them. We had great relationships. We still do. Actually, I shouldn't say we had. We do have great relationships. But once the government got involved in deciding that they would be part of the talks, it changed the whole dynamic. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. Change of pace on the porch today. We've been talking to a lot of City Council candidates, but we have our first public school trustee candidate, Catherine Wilson. Welcome. Thank you. Now, you're no stranger to public education? No. Your family has a long history in the Medicine Hat School division, starting with your father, 32 years. 30. Three, 33. Yeah. Well, it was 32 in a bit, so I always. Rounded. Up rounding up. Okay. Yeah. And he was, on the board for a lot of changes through the years. And they have a school now in his honor, which is very nice to see. It is. I had a daughter, daughter in law, who taught there for a little bit, too. So, yeah, it, it's, education is in your blood. It is definitely in my blood. And you are seeking another term. You were first elected in 2013. Yes. I came in on a by election. So just a quick story, because my dad had passed away at the end of his final year, but he still had eight months left of his term. And I had always been really highly involved with school councils and my kids throughout their schooling. And I just had this passion to finish his term, and I thought that's all it was going to be. I thought, I'm going to finish his term. And that just felt right to me. And I was actually quite shy. So for me to say, oh, I'm going to contact the Dus and say I'm going to finish his turn term was just sort of interesting because it was like a calling for me that I didn't even know existed. And so I did. I, I ran in a by election. There it was, there was two of us running, and I was able to win the seat. And I won his, you know, chair, I guess you could say I walked into a board office and and Grant Henderson was there, and it was so sweet to walk into people that he had worked side by side with. I didn't know how they would take me, considering I was his daughter, but they were all welcoming and they used the next eight months to fill me full of information that I needed to know so that I could run in the next election, which I did not expect. Yeah. Eight months. Yeah, I'm going to be out of here and then. Yes. Wait a minute. What happened? Yes. And I thought that would be it. And I didn't know I would have such a passion. Yeah. No. Education in Alberta today is under a lot of challenges. Sure. As we are recording this interview, the teachers that are on strike in Alberta, how did we get to this point? Yeah. You know, in all of my years watching my dad be a part of the school board trustees, my sister, my brother in law, teachers in the system. I've never thought we'd get to this part until we lost our local bargaining. That's where I was going. Yeah. And so I know that as a board, we really believed in local bargaining. Our local needs are met here. We know about them. We had great relationships. We still do. Actually, I shouldn't say we had. We do have great relationships, but once the government got involved in deciding that they would be part of the talks, it changed the whole dynamic. And so I'm not surprised that we are in a strike situation. I'm sad because medicine that has never been in a strike situation, and I know medicine at public school division has always worked really hard to ensure our teachers were well taken care of. So it never did end up in a strike situation for the children. And here we are. So that decision to take that out of the hands of the local board was just one of the things that the province has done. They also, I think, took away a lot of your taxation powers. We used to set a budget, used to be able to set the mill rate. And again, now that is being done in Edmonton. Yes. And it's all sent to us in envelopes. And so, one one factor that's really interesting is when you get your envelope of funding, it'll say this much is for transportation. And it's not like you can take that money and put it in the class. If you don't use it for transportation, then it goes back to the government. Boy. And so it's not like we can say, oh, we have extra money here, let's move it over to help our in-class instruction. It's not that easy. And we have to dot our I's and cross our T's with every dollar we spend. We did have a mini, audit a few years ago because I had phoned the education minister and challenged the budget that had come to us, because sometimes they advertise what a great budget it is. We're doing great for. Our schools are doing great for kids. And then when we go into our numbers were like, oh, this doesn't help us, maybe to help some areas, but for us it doesn't. And so I did have a conversation with her. And so I said, you know, maybe we should look at what are we doing wrong. Like if you said we have plenty of money, what are we doing wrong? And so we did, a mini budget with the government and we actually came out clean as can be. There was no extra. And everything that we were putting, what we were putting in the right place. And so I'm proud that we did that because when people say, oh, they're, you know, they're top heavy at Central Office or they're not putting enough in the classrooms, we are putting it exactly where we're told to put it. It must be frustrating to be a trustee, though, to have lost the power to bargain with your employees like the teachers, and then also the taxation part of it to to, you know, figure out where your money's going to go. So what does a trustee do in 2025? And that's a great question since I became a trustee. So 12 years now, there's been the threat of losing school board trustees with every government. And this is one step closer, I think, to eliminating school trustees, because the less power we have, what are we sitting at the table for? But in the end, we are in charge of one employee. And that's what I think is really important to get across, is we're not in charge of teachers. We're not in charge of educational assistants, are employee is the superintendent. And so she answers to us and we work with her to make sure that the school is providing the best programing, that the money is going where it needs to go. And so we work closely with her. And I think that's what we still do really well. So it's a similar governance to city council. Very, very much so. City manager and that's the person. That's right. As a trustee, you don't go down to a teacher and say you should be doing. Never. Go to a school and talk to a principal and say, I want you to do this. You can't do that. Those days are over. I know those days happened many, many years ago. Those days do not happen today. Someone once said being a trustee is like being in a ballroom, and you're on the balcony watching everyone below you dancing. You're not the one dancing. You can't even call the tune. No, no. And so it's always sort of kept with me when I know that I have to stay above board and just be in the governing model, because it's not about jumping into areas that I don't belong. And and I think as long as you have a superintendent that's doing a great job and they're doing everything they need to for the benefit of our children and their families, then the board is happy. So we set down policies and we work with our well, we have a whole like we have our superintendent, our associates, we work for the whole team. And, we just really try to bring great programing in for our kids. Are you encouraged by the number of candidates who are seeking a seat on the board? Yeah, I was actually I was a bit surprised because normally you have high numbers when there's maybe something that has been a concern in the community. And so I wasn't really sure as I saw the numbers growing, I thought, oh, this is interesting because in the past we had, a number of candidates running because they were upset with a possible policy that we were creating that they didn't like. And so this did surprise me. But in the end, when I saw who was running and why they were running, I was completely understanding of it. I mean, when you have children in the system, you want to fight for your you want to fight for your children and all children. So the passion is great. How do you handle someone who calls you up and says, my education, taxes are too high, I want you to lower them. I say, that's out of my element. You're not allowed. To. And there's also, I think, a misunderstanding that taxes get separated and they don't. So they used to, if you recall, they used to go into public and separate. And now it actually goes into one big pool. And the government today decides if they're going to go to private public or to the separate school. And we have seen the advent of, charter schools in the last number of years, too. And there's a debate there whether how much should be going to fund them and what should be going. It's a battle for the dollar. Yeah. And I really believe that public schools are the heart of the community. And we have to have public schools. I went to public schools. My children were raised in public schools. And I think that we have amazing courses. We have opportunities for all children. But if we keep getting cut and we keep losing money to private schools, we're going to actually see programs disappear. And that's when families turn to a charter or a private school because of smaller class sizes. And they believe more opportunities. And I think that's sometimes the intention of the government. When I see the strike right now and I, I see that Daniel has offered Daniel Smith has offered money to families and she has said, oh, if you enroll your child, we will give you $175 a week. And if you remain in that program after January, we'll give you even more. And that's almost encouraging families to stay. And I know that there's two sides to every story. You've got your teacher side and you've got your government side. And I'm very thankful that I'm not in the middle of that. I'm just really trying to know what it all entails, because I'm trying to support our teachers as well as do my job, which is listening to the government. You see some commenters on social media saying, oh, teachers will get two months off from the summer. They don't really work. But I have a daughter who's a teacher. She's actually school principal, and I know how much time she puts into her effort and the heart she has for her children. And when you see that kind of vitriol coming in social media, how does that affect you? It actually affects me a lot sometimes my husband says to put your put your phone down or take your phone. He takes my phone away because I want to get on and comment. I have a sister that's currently a teacher. I hear about classroom settings. I mean, our classrooms are so diverse now and it's a beautiful thing, but at the same time we need help. They need help and I love that there is so much diversity. But at the same time, we need to have people in there that can support each child. And so when you have children that have the learning challenges and they have learning outcomes that are different from others, we need help to sort of get through the moment of a day so the teacher can actually have a lasting impact on 25 of her children, not just 1 or 2. And I think that when we can look at what teachers do, they come in at eight, they leave it four, they go home. They're not just at home, they're marking, they're emailing, they're looking at next day's lessons. They work nonstop. I know for a summer two months off in the summer. Well, they're walking out the door the first week in July, and they're walking back in the door the first week in August, and they may not be there every day, 9 to 4, but they are getting their classroom set up because they love what they do. They're all about the children. And when you think about the kids now with everybody being on strike, they're at home. And maybe home isn't what it should be. Or maybe it's not a safe as it was when they were in their classroom. Some of these families really depend on the school programing, the hot lunch programs, the breakfast club. These are important things that kids are going to be missing out on while our teachers are on strike. And the social interaction with their friends is. Exactly. Missing as well. Exactly. So this is huge concern. Do we as taxpayers get value for our money that we put into the classroom? And I'm thinking of the teachers. You know, people are saying, well, why do they want more money? But when you take a look at the results, the teachers get from the students in standardized testing, Alberta is always at the top. So we are and we're the lowest funded, I think. And how does that relate? Doesn't. And I think if I can explain it best is, they're really promoting private and charter schools and we lost our funding to them. And so when it came down to the budget, once they started funding private schools, 70% it took from us. And so you now have less money to put in your class. So our kids now instead of and I when I ran as a trustee 12 years ago, it was all small class sizes, I believe in small class sizes. And now it comes down to some class have 20, some classes have 30, and then you have your one teacher, your one educational assistant. And sometimes that educational assistant is going from class to class and working with 3 or 4 other children. So we're trying to get through with the money that we're given. So if they would actually say we're not funding private and the money that the taxpayers are using should go to public schools, and that's your francophone Catholic in public. And the reason why I say that is because it's our tax dollars. So I want my tax dollars to be in public education. I don't want my dollars to be put in a private education that can decide if one child can attend or not, and that matters to me. I don't know if you want to comment on this, but I have seen some people are suggesting that Daniel Smith has a bone to pick with public education because she was once the chair of a dysfunctional school board in Calgary that was disbanded by the provincial government, so that maybe she's not really a fan of public education. Well, it seems that that's what she's portraying. I have had a conversation. I was at, we do, meet in Edmonton twice a year as school boards just to see what's going on and to gather. And we meet with our MLAs. And she was there representing Medicine Hat as our MLA. And we did have her sit at our table for a few moments. And I was concerned at the time about the voucher system, because the voucher system is becoming, a lot that she talks about, and she believes that every child gets a voucher, then they can choose what school they attend. And so if you bring the voucher to medicine, not public, that's all you get. And then you can take your next voucher to a private school. And then your parents would top it up to let you go to that school. But it really does come down to the elite, to them, because some can't afford to top up the education. And she was really adamant on saying that she is watching it very closely and feels that if it's if it is a success, that she could be looking at bringing it here. But at this point she was just watching it closely. The irony is, is that they have created a almost a competition between schools because the dollars follow the child and the school needs X number of dollars. Well, they're going to start an academy or something trying to attract extra students because that brings extra dollars. And competition is good in some areas, maybe not in education. Yeah, this is a great point. You're bringing up, Brian, because I'm really struggling with this one myself. Medicine hat, if we talk about Medicine Hat in the three divisions that we have here, we have public Catholic, and then we have Paros, which is the Cyprus county. And if you look around Medicine Hat, there's advertising all over Medicine Hat for Perry Rose and their academies. And I always stand back going, we have great academies, too. And then they go, well, what do you have? And so I'll say, well, we have the Arts Academy, we have Stem, we have athletic academies, like we've got great academies, which we brought in because we had to compete because if we didn't bring academies in, we were going to lose children to divisions that had academies because parents want their children in academies. And so as a board, we had to discuss how do we make affordable academies that are welcome for all children because it's public education. So we did we made affordable academies that children can attend if they choose to. And the children that don't attend academies. And there's programing back at the school where we do really fun things. There's baking and drama and art programs that aren't considered the Academy program, but they're considered other areas of interest for kids that don't enter an academy. And I think we did well considering we're a public school. But what do we have to do next then? We have to advertise. And it's really sad now that we have to advertise that we have great academies in our public school division that's open to all children. And then if you look, the Catholics have to advertise. They have great schools, great programs in their schools, and they are open to all children. And that's when I get sad. Three divisions, all open to all children. And it's all because it's money per child. And that advertising money might be better spent in the classroom. And it's really sad. So that's what we've come down to is this competition world. And I saw it coming, but I see it really strong right now and it has changed the way everybody looks at education. It shouldn't be a business. It should be about educating kids and giving them the best education that we can. I'm really passionate about this, because I want kids to have all the kinds of opportunities that they can without worrying about whether they can afford it or not. If you can't afford a program in the public school division, we make sure you still get that program. That's what we do. So when we go to the ballot box on October 20th, how can we help to change things? I think what's really important for me is that people need to become more aware that school board trustees are important. I understand the city council always. It's always at the top. And then they come in the last week or two and they go, all right, who's running for school board? And it's always sort of interesting how that works because we are we are the future. We are educating kids. We are making them to be these amazing individuals and we matter. And so why come in the last two weeks and start asking questions that you should be asking all year long? I think it's sad when people don't even know that they can vote for school board trustees, even if they don't have children in the system. That's another thing they're not informed about. Anyone can vote. Once you go in, they ask you, are you public? Are you Catholic? And then place your vote and do your research on what trustees will be best for the children that are in school in 2025 and going forward, whether it's your grandchildren, your children, or even just as an individual without children knowing how rough it is out there right now. And so we have to fight for the best programing and the funding for the kids so that it goes to the children. Communication from the school board to I know that everything goes out to the parents, but what about the general public? Are your meetings televised? Are they available? Yes. And so great question. They're not actually televised. And we have looked at televising our meetings and it's still in a conversation. We've looked at recording. I mean, we do take minutes, like recording minutes. We looked at the cost of the technology. So we have meetings that are in the evenings because that's when the trustees can meet. And we have very poor attendance. And we did try televising some meetings and we didn't have anyone showing up. And then we looked at employing someone to man the equipment and then the cost of keeping them after hours. It's costing us a lot of money. So we decided until there was more interest in watching our school board meetings, we would sit and sort of see where it took us. And we're at a place now where we are being questioned why they're not being televised. And so it is a conversation we're having at the board table on what we can do better for the people to understand what we are discussing around the board table. There's no secrets. We're very transparent and it's really sad, actually. We walk into the gallery and there's no one there, and we're like, where is everybody? And then when people come to present, we're like, please stay. You can stay for the rest of the meeting and they always leave. You have to get people riled up, I guess, to come out and angry and. Yeah. And involved. Yes. And I guess it shouldn't always be angry and involved. And we have evolved as a board as well in the last four years. I think we have student Senate now that sits with us. And that's something I'm very proud of as a as chair, I really sought out to ensure that we could get student voice at the table and all trustees, we all believe this is how it should work. Who better to talk to than the children? And so we actually have a student senate from Crescent Heights and Madison at high school, and they come to our board meetings and they give us their opinion, they offer advice, we ask them questions. This is someone you want to hear from. And that's probably one thing I'm so excited that we have gotten with the last four years of pulling together as a team, as student delegates at our. Table, and what a great way to build leaders at. Lutely. Absolutely. The irony is, is that the public school board is the oldest form of government in Alberta, predating the province. And yet here we are today, where you're almost pushed off into a corner. Almost fighting for it. October the 20th is the vote Catherine Wilson, candidate for reelection as trustees of the Public school board. Thank you for your time. Thank you for having me.