The Tribune asked candidates running in the municipal, regional, and School District 27 election a few questions about themselves and their platforms.
We asked the following:
• What position are you running for?
• Why are you running for it?
• What do you see as the top three issues to address in your community?
• How do you propose to tackle them?
Candidates in the area, including those who have been acclaimed, were invited to participate for free
and were given a maximum word limit of 275 words to answer the questions above.
The following are the answers we received from participating candidates:
Jim Ritchie
1. I am running for school board trustee in Zone 5.
2. I am running as a candidate for school trustee to see that the students in our district receive the best education possible and graduate with the tools necessary to succeed in our changing world. I have 30 years of educational experience in the Chilcotin-Cariboo both as a classroom teacher and a school administrator. Before my retirement I was the principal at Columneetza Secondary School.
3. a) Declining enrolment at both Columneetza and Williams Lake secondary schools has resulted in a significant reduction in the courses offered in the past few years.
b)The decline in the population in many of our rural schools has resulted in the reduction in teaching staff and an increase in the multi-grading of students. Providing an adequate educational program to these students is a major challenge.
c) The lack of a transparent, long-term plan to guide the district in the upcoming years.
4. I will support the district administrative staff in their development of a comprehensive long-term plan addressing the problems we have been facing for the past several years. The focus of the plan must be directed at improving the educational opportunities for students. We must take a serious and immediate look at reconfiguring our secondary schools. We should continue to support, promote and expand our pre-apprenticeship partnership with Thompson Rivers University. I will support the continued development and expansion of the current distance education services to students in rural settings as I see this initiative as an effective way of providing expert instruction otherwise unavailable to these students.