Foley seeks full term on board of trustees

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This article was published 03/10/2022 (1234 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite only sitting on the Brandon School Division’s board of trustees for half a term, Blaine Foley has learned a lot within that short time and is eager to get back to work following the Oct. 26 municipal election.

Foley is one of three current school board members who won a seat during the 2020 school board byelection, which was called following the resignation of several BSD trustees within a short period of time.

Since then, Foley and fellow byelection victors Calistus Ekenna and Jason Gobeil have had to endure unprecedented disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and daunting financial constraints that made balancing the last two BSD budgets a major headache.

However, Foley told the Sun over the weekend that he has taken many of these challenges in stride, which is partially due to his job as a housing co-ordinator for the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation.

“I think the two positions complement one another because they’re both dealing with setting spending priorities and working with funding recommendations,” he said on Sunday.

Foley was born and raised in the Wheat City, where he attended Meadows School and Vincent Massey High School before obtaining a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brandon University.

He then enrolled in Carleton University to pursue a master of arts in public policy and administration, which put him on the right track to work for the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation and eventually BSD.

Despite possessing a solid understanding of finances and administrative work, Foley admitted the last two years have presented some unique challenges, with the board facing down a $1.2-million deficit ahead of passing its 2022-23 operating budget.

Foley mostly credits this shortfall to the province’s insistence on freezing the division’s special requirement and special levy, which limited the board’s ability to compensate for inflation and a variety of other uncontrollable factors that are causing costs to rise.

“It’s the longest meeting I’ve ever been to,” Foley said, recalling a particularly gruelling budget meeting in which board members were forced to make some difficult decisions. “It was probably nine hours, so it was a really difficult process.”

BSD trustees ultimately passed the 2022-23 operating budget on March 7 after signing off on a bunch of cuts to programming and support staff, including 10.69 full-time equivalent teaching positions.

However, Foley stands behind this budget and is proud of the fact that the board managed to work collaboratively to ensure that no classroom teachers were included in these cuts.

“And I think that’s important to ensure that class sizes don’t increase,” he said.

Looking ahead to the future, Foley is excited at the idea of getting four whole years to craft BSD programs and policy if he gets re-elected later this month.

Outside of securing funding for all-day kindergarten and helping to close the graduation gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, Foley is passionate about developing partnerships with community groups to offer more opportunities to students.

“So that might mean offering advanced placement courses for Grade 12 students, or maybe programs that could help students bridge into the labour market, or even working with the City of Brandon to see if there’s opportunities for public transit for older students,” he said.

“Because I know a lot of the buses in our community are running, but they’re not always full. And if there are more students getting comfortable using the buses, maybe they would continue to use that service as they go on with their lives.”

And while Foley knows he still has much to learn as a trustee, he is more confident than ever that this body serves a vital role within the community, especially after witnessing the province nearly upend the entire school board system through the Education Modernization Act (also known as Bill 64).

“It’s all about being approachable and listening to the concerns of voters and making sure that they’re heard at the board level,” he said.

“I think that’s why it’s important that we continue to have local school boards and that decisions aren’t made centrally out of Winnipeg.”

This article is the first part of an ongoing series. The Sun will be interviewing every remaining nominee who is running to become a member of the 2022-26 BSD school board ahead of the Oct. 26 municipal election.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson