Shelley Coburn (City) – Absolutely not. Education is a public good. When you live is a country like Canada, where the systems are funded by public dollars you need a strong and educated citizenry to contribute to these systems through taxation in order to sustain them. This is achieved when people work and have a healthy wage. The children, as cliché as it sounds, really are the future, for everyone and we should really work towards accepting this and making it a priority if want to continue enjoying things like, for example, our healthcare system. I think we saw exactly how much a public concern education is this year during the strike. I believe it impacted more than just families with children. For example, you run a lunch program and your livelihood depends on your sales from September until June. What happened to you this year? You lost revenue and this revenue is not just something you depend on but something the local economy depends on too because now there are less dollars being injected into the economy because there are less dollars coming into the hands of individual. This is just one small example, but think about it, who in this Province was not effected?
Pamala-Rose Combs (Township) – Probably not.
Megan Dykeman (Township) – Yes. Taxpayers of Langley public schools, whether parents or not, have the same ability to communicate with and influence the board as any other stakeholder.
Suzanne Perreault (Township) – When our invested interest in education and children is done well, children are thriving and graduating, moving on to higher education and/or the workplace, then all taxpayers are adequately represented. When our children are left with unstable environments, inadequate funding to provide the appropriate leadership and support, leading to losing children between the gaps; everyone loses.
Rod Ross (Township) – No. However, it could be noted that although some taxpayers may not have children in our schools…I suspect they have grandchildren that are. They have every opportunity to share their opinions with the Board directly and indirectly. Always something to improve on.