Three of the four Upper Grand District School Board trustees attended the all candidates meeting here on Oct. 7.
Irma De Vries said she brings a unique perspective because her children were educated in a private Christian school.
She said parents should ask if the curriculum is easy to find out, and then spelled out the sex education program proposed for elementary schools – until the government recalled it because of a public outcry.
She said she disagrees with school teaching and contradicting what people would normally teach their children at home.
Timothy Meyers has a business education and is the manager of the largest roofing company in Canada. “I can translate that over to the school board,” he said.
He said the board is not spending resources for front line workers and he would “invest properly.”
He added he would not promise to cut taxes because “I’d be lying to you.” He said he would like to “reallocate spending.”
Incumbent Bruce Schieck is a retired cash crop farmer. He said he has been the only trustee with a rural background on the board, and he is “committed to providing youth with the best educational opportunities.”
One resident asked the trustees about bullying and what can be done about it. She said it is particularly bad for gay teens, and she asked how trustees can prevent teen suicides. She cited an Orangeville high school, where three teens have died.
Schieck said three teens have died by suicide in the last month and they were from Orangeville District Secondary School.
He said the school board has anti-bullying policies, but he would also like to ban all cell phones and texting machines. He said cyber bullying has become a major problem, and “I think that’s where it comes from.”
Plus, he said, “each cell phone now has a camera in it. In two minutes, it can be around the world.”
He said his recommendations would be a start, and he agreed teens that are different “get picked on and they feel they can’t handle it. That’s what happened in Orangeville.”
De Vries said of bullying, “We don’t want that problem in school. Children should feel safe – no matter who.”
She said secularism in the school is a problem, and courts around the world have ruled secularism is a religion of atheism, but that secularism has removed other religious teaching from schools.
She said that leads to students “being very intolerant of people of a different faith perspective. They are also being bullied.”
She said she believes in the Golden Rule, but what is the point of that when some students simply don’t care.
Meyers said, “I was bullied. I can appreciate how these kids would feel. We, as a society, have to raise these kids . . . all of us together.”
He advocated, “Get back to basics. Responsible parents and responsible educators.”
