A Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools trustee, who was only sworn in months ago, seeks more time at the board table.
Naomi Bailey won a byelection to fill a seat vacated by current Nanaimo-Ladysmith member of Parliament Lisa Marie Barron back in January and hopes to build on the experience she’s gained the past eight months. She is better versed now at how the board is run and how decisions are made.
“Understanding how the meetings are set up was a big thing,” said Bailey. “I’ve navigated my way through that, so I feel very comfortable now. I was quiet the first few months and now I’m starting to understand the system. I’m starting to be able to speak out on what I believe in.”
The school district has a truth and reconciliation policy and saw its best-ever graduation rates in 2021 with 80.3 per cent of aboriginal students and 88.7 per cent of all students completing high school. Bailey, who is Indigenous and has a teaching background, said the truth and reconciliation policy has assisted with higher grad rates, but more needs to be done.
“We still have a lot of work to do, because the Indigenous graduation rates are great, but we still have a significantly higher number of Indigenous students graduating with an adult Dogwood (diploma), not a regular Dogwood,” she said. “What that means for them in terms of graduating from high school and moving into perhaps post-secondary … they’re going to have to upgrade and get the courses they need to get into programs.”
With her experience as a teacher, Bailey said she has a unique perspective when it comes to budgeting. It’s complex, she said.
“It’s interesting because I actually just looked over a very big agenda and a good 80 pages of it was budget … At the end of the day, how much money we actually have to work with isn’t very much after you’ve paid salaries and all those pieces,” she said. “But I maintain, I want to see our budget focus at the ground level. To me that’s very important that the money should be felt in the classrooms directly.”
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ELECTION 2022: Candidates in Nanaimo, Lantzville, RDN and SD68
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