Dear Editor,
Re: All Candidates Meeting at Richmond Secondary
I find myself surprisingly frustrated after Thursday evening’s candidates meeting. Surprisingly because I should have expected it, based on my personal disagreements with the ruling party in our province. And yet, here I sit — frustrated and angry. I would like to address a couple of comments in particular from this evening.
To Liberals Jon Yap and Teresa Wat,
First, let’s be very clear: PACs in Richmond raise money for necessities. The bulk of the fundraising we do every, damn year goes into providing teachers with funds to replace and update aging, antiquated or simply non-existing materials — especially with the new curriculum that has been rolled out.
It goes to provide technology that schools, with their ever-shrinking budgets, can’t afford – especially important with many of the aspects of the new curriculum. It goes towards ensuring that our libraries have up-to-date reference and non-fiction materials, as well as a wide selection of books that will engage, challenge, teach and inspire our children to do more, see more, be more – something every thriving community needs to continue to thrive.
It goes towards replacing aging, unsafe gym equipment to ensure our children are learning about the benefits of exercise, and, for many, finding that niche where they shine.
It goes towards supplies and materials for the ever-shrinking education assistant group, who yearly find themselves struggling to support an increasing number of needs with no help from the government in either manpower or funding.
In the case of our school, where we are fortunate to have “more” than some, it also goes back into our community — to Feeducate for other schools to access, and to supporting community events so that many children in the district can attend. In short, our fundraising goes predominantly to funding what has been considered basic school necessities for decades.
We fund these items more and more on a yearly basis for the simple reason that the Liberal government has systematically underfunded education for more than 15 years by changing the funding model, failing to maintain funding to inflation and a plethora of downloaded additional costs onto the school districts.
No, parents don’t fundraise for extras. They fundraise for essentials. And we shouldn’t.
To Linda Reid, I must take huge exception to your statement that Strong Start allows children to be identified earlier and given access to supports earlier than before.
I spent 25 years as an early childhood educator. Twenty years ago, we could indeed call in the local health nurse if we had concerns. Occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapist — we had access. However, over the years this has changed due to chronic underfunding and cuts to health supports. And merely being in Strong Start doesn’t change that fact. To access any supports means long wait lists, and typically, even then, only those with extreme needs are placed on them. Your average child has very little chance of getting any sort of support without parents having to pay out of pocket — and with a child poverty rate that is still one in every five children in the province (a higher rate than even Newfoundland — considered one of the poorest of the provinces) many families simply cannot afford what children received even 15 years ago.
No, this province does not care for its children.
Megan Riter
Richmond
