School board elections: Electoral Division 12

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Provincial school board elections are coming up on Nov. 4, and campaigns are ongoing in four West Island Lester B. Pearson School Board (LBPSB) electoral divisions Candidates are running for a spot on the school board council of commissioners who, during their four-year term, manage the LBPSB’s resources, including 3,000 full- and part-time employees, more than 28,000 students in 62 schools, and a $207 million budget.

Every week up until election day, The Chronicle will present the candidates. This week, we will look at Electoral Division 12.

Encompassing the borough of Ile Bizard/Ste. Genevieve and part of Pierrefonds/Roxboro, Purcell Academy, Terry Fox and Thorndale Elementary schools, Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School (PCHS), and the West Island Career Centre (WICC) all fall into the geographical territory of Electoral Division 12.

Returning candidate and Pierrefonds resident Bart Sellitto, 60, believes schools must adapt to the ever-changing society in order to better prepare students for the real world. The father of three children who all graduated from PCHS, and grandfather of three children who will be starting school over the next few years, Sellitto said seeing his family grow is what made him think about running for school board commissioner again. He was on the Baldwin Cartier board between 1989 and 1998, and was acclaimed as LBPSB Electoral Division 17 commissioner in 1998, until Luisa Bulgarelli-Vero won in 2004.

“I’ve been away for four years and, in a sense, I’ve been able to look at things from a different perspective,” Sellitto said, adding he decided to run in Division 12 because it is close to his home and he knows the community. Sellitto said one of his main concerns is providing quality education that gives students life skills.

“I find that the world is changing so quickly…We learn our reading, writing, and arithmetic, but we’re not prepared for the financial world we’re faced with,” he said, adding school’s should also provide would-be entrepreneurs the tools they’ll need to develop their ideas in the future. Sellitto also said communication between the board and the community is something that has been a problem in the past, and that he would like to see a better level of transparency on the board-level.

In the past four years, incumbent candidate and Pierrefonds resident Sylvia Di Donato has also been concerned with the transparency issue and has been working with the LBPSB communication committee.

“What I’d like to see is a better form of communication with the entire community,” she said, adding bad communication may also play a part in why voter turnout in school board elections is low. “Most of our constituents don’t realize what commissioners do and how the school board functions. I think people need to be made aware.”

A mother of two grown sons who went through the public system in the West Island, Di Donato, 52, said she wants to work on finding more “creative” ways to attract students – and money – to the school board, such as the ongoing four-year-old kindergarten pilot project in elementary schools, and the new International Language Centre in Pointe Claire.

“I think there are a lot of avenues that need to be explored. Thinking outside the box, with regards to initiatives like this, proves beneficial to students that are there at the moment, and to those coming over the next many years, we hope,” she said. “I feel there’s a lot of work still left to be done that I’d like to be part of.”

As for election day on Nov. 4, Di Donato hopes people will take some time out from their day to vote.

“Life is just coming at you more, I think, than 20 years ago, and it’s difficult to get people to come out and vote,” she said, adding a better job needs to be done to get people interested in the school boards and actually run in the elections “so we can have elections in all of the wards.”

For Sellitto, it’s a matter of rights: “It’s not a pleasant word to use, but there is voter apathy,” he said. “The important thing to remember is that voting is a right. Governments, and our governments here, have, in the past, played with rights. We have to go out and vote to show that we want our rights protected and that we don’t want anybody trampling on them.”

School board elections will take place across the province on Nov. 4, with an advanced poll this 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.