The Rocky Mountain Outlook posed five questions to the two candidates running for the open Banff ward board of trustees position at Canadian Rockies Public Schools.
The byelection is Oct. 5 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and voting polls will be set up inside the Banff Community High School library. Standard voting rules apply as in a general election.
Each candidate was given a 150-word limit to respond to each of the following questions:
Luke Sunderland
1) Tell us about yourself
My life is touched daily by the Canadian Rockies Public School system through my two children who attend Banff Elementary School, our international student and through my wife, who is a teacher at Banff Community High School. Since moving to the Canadian Rockies, I have volunteered on numerous boards, including Banff Lake Louise Hotel Motel Association, AMPPE, Banff Heritage Tourism, Tourism Jasper, and numerous working groups for Banff Lake Louise Tourism.
After a diverse 12-year career with Fairmont Hotels and Resorts across Western Canada and the United States, I joined the Banff Centre and currently serves as the vice-president and chief operating officer. My role as chief operating officer includes leadership of the Centre’s hospitality, conferences, Sally Borden fitness and recreation, marketing and communications and physical facilities departments. As a school trustee, I will draw from extensive business, leadership and board experiences, to contribute to CRPS funding, strategy, leadership and communication.
2) Why are you running?
As a parent, leader and volunteer, this opportunity means a great deal to me. I want every student to achieve his or her best, which requires improving the learning environments in our schools. The best way to do this is to provide schools with the resources they need to improve student learning that can span different environments and can be individually tailored.
Specifically, we need more support for English as a Second Language, reduced class sizes, diversified learning opportunities across sectors, improved funding for special needs, and a sustained commitment to teacher development and support, which has the greatest impact on student learning.
To achieve these goals, I believe the district will benefit from my experience as a leader and board member to work as a team with government and stakeholders to grow the district’s financial capacity, strengthen partnerships, lead strategies, and ultimately work towards stable enrolment.
3) In CRPS’ current mandate, what area do you think best personifies Inspiring Hearts and Minds? Please explain your answer.
I believe strongly in the importance of education that focuses on the physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual wellness of our students. The core of Inspiring Hearts and Minds addresses the needs of the “whole child,” which is best personified by valuable programs such as Nature Explorers, outdoor education, arts and athletics, wherein each student can thrive with the support and dedication of teachers, parents and community partners.
Moving forward, I would like to see expanded real world learning opportunities that provide authentic experiences for students. To make this happen, teachers need ongoing professional development time to collaborate with each other and community partners, as well as resources to take students on field trips or bring local experts into the schools.
4) Alberta has a rapidly growing population and provincial funding to divisions revolves around growth, which leaves CRPS at a disadvantage. How would you address this current method of funding distribution with Education Minister David Eggen?
Through my role at The Banff Centre and other boards, I’ve developed relationships with decision-makers like the minister as well as our own local MLA. These relationships are an advantage in terms of understanding and accessing future discussions.
The current funding formula disadvantages rural school divisions like CRPS. The previous government acknowledged this and called for a full funding model review, which was never completed. We need to re-instate discussions with rural schools across the province to identify common needs and potential solutions.
As a trustee, I would invite our MLA to champion this cause on the board’s behalf with Minister Eggen. This is how we will change the funding formula for the better. With improved resources, we will be able to help teachers improve student learning.
5) What is a main direction you think the school board should focus on over the next five years?
School trustees are collectively responsible for strategy, finances, stakeholder communication and managing the superintendent. What is most needed at this stage is improved financial capacity to give the schools the resources to improve student learning.
This can be done by working with other districts to get the funding model changed so that it does not disadvantage rural schools and is equitable to the students regardless of where they live or what system they choose. Second, we can strengthen and diversity partnerships to support and help deliver new learning opportunities. Finally, we should work with the community towards an affordable housing strategy.
If families can’t afford to live here, enrolment will always be a challenge. This erodes the very foundation of our community. With improved financial capacity, expanded partnerships and stable enrolment, the board can then focus more resources on ensuring the district improves learning through the Inspiring Hearts and Minds framework.
Joe Bembridge
1) Tell us about yourself
I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to call Banff home. I was raised in Canmore by parents who are educators. My education includes graduating from a performing arts high school to majoring in theatre performance at Concordia University in Montreal.
I have taught English and theatre in Thailand and Taiwan. In Banff, I have been fortunate to share my passion for the arts with students in the Bow Valley. I have led arts programs at ERS, volunteered with Mountain Readers at BES, and lead play writing workshops for the CRPS Wordsmash Young Writers’ conference.
As the BCHS director of drama for the past five years, I have played a significant role in bringing top quality musicals (Grease, Unrinetown) and commissioned works (Ronda!) for our local students to perform.
I am the founder of Banff Pride and an advocate for the LGBTQ community. I work as an assistant general manager at Park restaurant. One of my greatest honours was being recognized by my community with a 2014 Banff SHINE award.
2) Why are you running?
I am running because I absolutely adore this community. I believe that the successes of the public school system in Banff are worth celebrating and supporting. I want our schools’ arts and sports programs to be supported while maintaining their strong academic tradition.
I have seen first-hand the benefits of arts programming to the development of the young people in our community. I believe that for arts programming to continue to flourish in this community, it needs a strong advocate and I believe that can be my role.
I am also concerned about growing class sizes in the core subjects at the high school. When class sizes get too large, students begin to fall through the cracks.
3) In CRPS’ current mandate, what area do you think best personifies Inspiring Hearts and Minds? Please explain your answer.
I wish that this program was around when I was student at CRPS. I have worked with and explored this program and I think that it has fantastic guiding principles.
I like that it stresses the “Creative and Curious.” School isn’t always exciting, but if we can keep students curious and creative, we can make students’ school experience a worthwhile enterprise.
Mr. N’s incredible band program exemplifies the spirit of Hearts and Minds – through hard work and dedication students experience the joy of music, collaboration and great trips to places like Seattle. Ms. Bulas inspired her Grade 12 math class by agreeing to get a tattoo on her foot if any of them received a 100 per cent on their final exam. She now has a tattoo. Miss Mandi inspires legions of elementary school students with her incredible storytelling ability. Inspiring Hearts and Minds is alive and thriving in Banff schools.
4) Alberta has a rapidly growing population and provincial funding revolves around growth, which leaves CRPS at a disadvantage. How would you address this current method of funding distribution with Education Minister David Eggen?
The current funding model is based around a per student/per credit funding formula. Obviously, this model is a challenge for a small board like our own. I think the present government is open to ideas and we as a board need to make sure that our challenges are front and center with this new government.
I don’t believe that the relationship with government needs to be adversarial. The current board has been creative and forward thinking in its approach to funding and I think this will bode well for us when negotiating future funding.
This government campaigned on supporting public education and so far we have no reason to believe they will not want to support both our challenges and successes at CRPS. It is the board’s job to communicate with government the importance of all our programming in the valley.
5) What is a main direction you think the school board should focus on over the next five years?
I think that we should strive to create a positive relationship with the provincial government. We should continue to expand the fabulous programming that has made CRPS such a wonderful success.
We can be leaders in broad-based arts programming, academics, environmental stewardship, and ELL programming. The schools are gateways for many students and their families in this community; by having strong schools we help create strong community.
