School board should get back to business

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2023 (1066 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The voters have spoken, the matter is closed, let’s move on. That’s the sentiment felt by many Brandonites as they reflect on the results of Wednesday’s Brandon School Division board of trustees byelection.

As the Sun reported, Kirk Carr was elected in Ward 1, while Lorraine McConnell was elected in Ward 2. They each won by a substantial margin, meaning that there is no doubt regarding their victories, nor is there any ambiguity regarding the message their victories send.

Indeed, Carr and McConnell each told the Sun that with the parental rights-supporting candidates having been soundly rejected by voters, it’s time for the division and the board of trustees to concentrate on other important matters.

“My first priority is to stop the bigotry that’s been going on, stop this hate,” Carr said. “There’s a lot more things that need to be addressed within the division. We need to get started on doing the hard work.”

McConnell agreed, saying that “It’s time for the school board to get on with doing their job, and I think the public wants that.”

We agree with both Carr and McConnell. For the past six months, too much time and attention has been devoted to the controversy ignited by Lorraine Hackenschmidt, when she told the school board that she objected to books discussing sexuality and gender issues being available in BSD libraries, and linked 2SLGBTQIA+ people to pedophilia and grooming.

Her request for the formation of a committee to review and potentially ban objectionable content from school libraries exposed our city to national media attention for all the wrong reasons, and was ultimately rejected by the board in May.

That should have ended the issue, but former premier Heather Stefanson made “parental rights” a centrepiece of her doomed re-election campaign, and the government of Saskatchewan recently used the Charter’s “notwithstanding clause” to pass legislation that enshrines a parent’s right to know if their child changes their personal pronouns or gender identity at school.

Despite Manitoba voters’ rejection of Stefanson and her parental rights platform on Oct. 3, the issue became the focal point of the board byelection in Wards 1 and 2. It literally smothered other issues that should have been discussed during the campaign.

The situation became further inflamed this past Monday, when Hackenschmidt returned to the board table and launched yet another unfounded attack against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, forcing board chair Linda Ross to ultimately terminate the presentation. In doing so, Ross told Hackenschmidt that “we are not going to tolerate hate speech in this room … You are verging on hate speech.”

She called it “hate speech,” and she was right to do so. We have heard too much of it from Hackenschmidt and her noisy band of supporters over the past six months, and we agree with Ross, Carr and McConnell that it has to stop. The board has heard enough of their toxic nonsense and, judging by Wednesday’s results, so have Brandonites.

On Wednesday night, Carr told the Sun that he wants to focus on rising bullying rates and preparations for collective bargaining with teachers and other staff, but those are just two of many important issues the board must grapple with over the coming months.

Despite palpable uncertainty over the level of funding that will be provided by the Kinew government, the division’s budget preparations have already begun and the board’s budget deliberations have been scheduled for early in the new year. That timeline will force the board to focus on a number of challenges facing the board, including the need for more teachers and educational assistants, the growing cost pressures caused by the rising inflation rate, infrastructure issues, class size pressures and a worsening classroom shortage caused by the division’s rising student population.

There is also the simmering St. Augustine’s school issue, along with the usual personnel and governance matters that the board is regularly required to manage.

That’s a long list, and too much time that could have been spent addressing them has been wasted on the various elements of the parental rights issue.

The clock is ticking. It’s time for our school board to get back to business.