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Provincial: When bad things happen
Commentary by Jeff Burgar
for South Peace News
The sacking of the 23 trustees of Northland School Division shouldn’t be surprising.
Abysmal academic achievements. Misdirected funds. Lack of basic equipment in schools. Parent involvement in many schools practically nil. An empty $12.5 million school in Peavine. All of these stories, and many more, paint a pretty sad picture of Northlands.
It would be nice if each and every one of those trustees had a little sign on his or her desk that said, “The buck stops here.’’
Then we could blame them for two-hour long bus trips.
We could blame them for parents sending their kids to school with no breakfast and no lunch.
We could blame them for kids not studying at home.
We could blame them for drop out rates that see less than about one in seven kids graduate from high school.
We could blame them when the money runs out and classrooms have no equipment.
When so much in Northland is broken, is there a point in singling out trustees?
Yes, there is a point.
Even if this is just a token gesture signalling our provincial government demands accountability, it is a point.
Northland’s trustees are at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. From them, everything flows downward. This includes local decisions, or lack of decisions, rewards, penalties, accomplishments, and setbacks.
Someone has to take responsibility for all this. By running for office, the trustees themselves signalled their willingness for “the buck’’ to stop at their desks.
Some days, this seems to be a very difficult concept for people everywhere to understand. Especially the public.
Most elected officials across Alberta pretend to have no sense of personal responsibility for happenings.
The idea of something going wrong “on their watch,’’ and they being responsible, is very rare. Make no mistake, they know the score.
When it comes time for re-election, or back patting, watch these very same people line up to take credit for everything good that might have happened.
Their name is on everything good, “working hard,’’ and being right in the middle of things.
But, when things go bad, if they can be found at all, they usually finger point, or pretend to be completely blind sided by events. The public sops this malarkey up.
We doubt any Northland trustees will step up and say, “We continue to fail our students, our parents, and our communities.’’ No matter.
Today, the buck stopped at their desk anyway.
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