School board elections: Electoral Division 6

With just over 3,600 electors registered on the English-language school board list, Dorval’s Electoral Division 6 oversees Bishop Whelan and Dorval Elementary schools.

Incumbent candidate Barbara Freeston, 56, has served on the LBPSB’s council of commissioners for the past nine years. While she says seeking re-election was not an “automatic decision,” she believes she still has a role to play. “The administration is doing marvelous, wonderful things, innovative things, things that are outside the envelope, that I’d like to be part of,” she said, referring to the school board’s new initiatives like the International Language Centre in Pointe Claire.

Freeston is also an advocate of vocational and adult education, and believes the LBPSB must keep it as part of its mandate. “Vocational education is revenue positive for the board,” she said, adding the early literacy program introduced in primary schools was funded by money brought in through vocational facilities. “There are private schools, like Aviron Technical Institute of Montreal, that offer vocational programs. But they are fare more in tuition a year. With us, it’s paid by the government. It’s public education.”

Freeston said the LBPSB must keep offering adult education for those who, for whatever reason, leave high school before graduating, and then return when they are older to obtain their leave. “Adult education does not take any time or energy away from the primary and secondary sector. It’s a separate department,” she said. “The two are more than complimentary. They’re synergistic.”

Freeston, whose two children graduated from the public system, is also focused on better integrating technology in the board. For one, she is using it instead of flyers to run her campaign (www.barbarafreeston.com). She also believes it can be used to close the “communication gap” that exists between the board and its stakeholders, and be implemented in the classroom as a teaching tool. “We’ve barely scratched the surface,” she said.

Gordon Neysmith, 45, says his interest in getting involved with the school board began with the major school changes in elementary schools in the past two years, which also affected his son. “The only way parents are ever going to have a voice is to get themselves elected to the board,” he said, adding he believes the board has become too big. “I want to see the board focus – and even narrowly focus – on primary and secondary education.”

Unlike Freeston, Neysmith believes it should be up to CEGEPS and trade schools to offer vocational programs, because doing so at the school board takes focus away from primary and secondary education, and leads to schools being closed and students being moved. “The board doesn’t have to offer redundant courses. Our enrollment in primary and secondary is declining, yet the board keeps getting bigger. And I have a problem with that,” he said, adding, however, that when it comes to high school leave, education should be provided at any age.

Neysmith also has sees a problem with communication at the board: “They have a top-down level of communication,” he said. “What I want to do, if elected, is be the representative from Dorval. I’m not the guy who comes down to explain what things are being done by the council to the people of Dorval. I want to be the voice of Dorval on the council.”

School board elections will take place across the province Sunday. Citizens will vote in the electoral division they live in, and not necessarily where their children go to school. All Canadian citizens 18 years old and up residing in the LBPSB territory for at least six months can vote. Electors can check voter registration details and their school board affiliation by calling the Director General of Elections at 1-888-353-2846. For more information on the LBPSB elections, call the returning officer at 514-780-8683.