A special advisor has been appointed by the Minister of Education to provide assistance to the School District 27 to implement recommendations developed by education specialist Dianne Turner in a report to the Minister earlier this year.
Board of Education Chair Tanya Guenther welcomed Wednesday the appointment of Mike McKay to implement actions to address Turner’s 12 recommendations that focus on improving governance, business practices, communication, and culture within the District.
McKay and Assistant Deputy Minister Keith Godin arrived in the District this morning to begin conversations with the Board, staff and other stakeholders.
He will be working in his role as special advisor until the end of December 2018.
The recommendations released publicly last week were made by Turner who was asked by the the Ministry of Education to seek information about concerns brought forth by the Cariboo-Chilcotin Teachers Association after it passed a vote of non-confidence in November 2017 citing concerns around inappropriate personnel practices, financial mismanagement, and a failure to comply with the 2016 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on staffing in B.C classrooms.
“When I look at the recommendations these are things that we probably could have pulled upon ourselves and identified,” said Superintendent Mark Wintjes,” so to have an external person come in and identify them for us I think just reaffirms that yes we do need to build on our culture, yes we do need to build on that communications piece.”
A report titled ‘An Inside Look at School District No. 27 (Cariboo Chilcotin)’ was issued by the District in response to the recommendations which the Board of Education said ‘concludes there is no evidence to support the accusations made by the Cariboo Chilcotin Teachers’ Association.”