Milton Mahoney won his Trustee seat in the School Board 57 by-election back in December.
He’s running again, but for different reasons this time.
“In the by-election I ran because it was systemic racism seemed to be the word of the day for Prince George and the Minister of Education made it quite clear about that,” Mahoney said.
“We had two former trustees resign over that because of systemic racism. Now, this I think was totally unfair, and that that virtually threw every citizen of Prince George under the bus. I do not believe that we are systemic racism here, but I do think that perhaps the people that resigned really didn’t want to look into it very closely.”
Now, Mahoney says the Minister of Education is throwing teachers under the bus.
“We are the new flagship for the new and approved education system that the classrooms are, again, a little larger. Needy children are putting in the mainstream of the classroom. They’re cutting back on the teacher assistance, and that’s all from the advisors report.
“In addition, the teachers, they didn’t really sign up, as Minister Whiteside suggested, that they are going to have to be counsellors, nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, caregivers. The teachers didn’t sign up for this and not once the did the Minister of Education use the word educator, everything but. Teachers don’t have time to do that, they’re there to educate our children, and if they have to be psychiatrists, if they have to be social workers, they don’t have time to teach our children the things that they need for the future.”
Mahoney added he wants to change the atmosphere in the schools themselves.
“We are trying to implement, on a ongoing basis, some strategies that they have implemented. They’re not working, and right now in our schools, we do have an environment of fear, bullying, intimidation, and or harassment, and it’s quite prevalent.
“There doesn’t seem to be any recourse for teachers or staff to speak out because they are frightened. They’re frightened for reprisal. Now, if they speak out now they could be humiliated into submission or they could be forced to resigned or they could be outright fired.”
He said he doesn’t want teachers to work under fear, because it doesn’t work in the long run.
The Civic Election will take place on Saturday, October 15th.