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Sheila Boehm supports middle school

Sheila Boehm is running for trustee for Zone 5 because she wants to be a voice for parents on the board.
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Sheila Boehm

Sheila Boehm is running for trustee for Zone 5 because she wants to be a voice for parents on the board.

“The parent voice in decision-making has to be greater as we move forward with so many challenges,” Boehm says.

Boehm is also a supporter of reconfiguring the two Grade 8 to 12 secondary schools in Williams Lake to make WLSS a Grade 7 to 9 middle school and Columneetza a Grade 10 to 12 secondary school.

“Most parents I’ve spoken to do not want Grade 7s brought up from elementary school into a Grade 7 to 12 high school,” Boehm says.

She says Columneetza should be the high school because it has the day-care centre for teen mothers, a new shop, and it is close to Thompson Rivers University and access to the university’s pre-apprenticeship trades programs for high school students.

She says the middle school option will also help to increase elective options.

“I feel that with our declining enrolment a junior secondary school would be the most fiscally responsible option for managing our education budget,” Boehm says.

She favours finding alternate ways to keep rural and city schools with low enrolment viable by renting unused school space for uses such as day-care centres and after-school programs.

She also realizes that one or more elementary schools in the Williams Lake bowl may need to be closed if Grade 7s are moved to a middle school.

She also believes that expanding the high school trades training programs at TRU, to include programs such as hair dressing, early childhood education and medical mentoring will also go a long way toward keeping youth in school.

“I am all about thinking outside the box,”  Boehm says. “I want to look at each school individually and assess the pros and cons for potential closure before we make any decisions.”

Boehm was raised and schooled in Williams Lake. She earned a registered nursing degree at the University of Victoria and later became a chiropractor taking her training at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic college in Toronto.

She and her husband Micheal, a service technician at Lake City Ford, have three children in Grade 5, Grade 2 and pre-school.

She and her husband volunteer in whatever activities their children are involved in. Boehm is a past president of Canadian Parents for French and has been active for six years in the Marie Sharpe elementary parent advisory council but is stepping back from this work to run for trustee.