â–ş Listen Live
â–ş Listen Live

SD 57 Trustee Candidate Betty Bekkering says more funding needed for the district

Betty Bekkering is looking to keep her seat as a School District 57 Trustee.

Bekkering is finishing her eighth year as a trustee.

“I knew that the last couple of years had been quite a challenge, I really liked where we were by June, just prior to the closure for summer break this year,” she said.

“We just had done so much work on the first year of our strategic plan, and we had just adopted all of the policies and admin procedures that we’ve been working on to try and delineate what was governance and what was operational.”

Bekkering said she felt she needed to run again to see these come to fruition.

“I really love this insurgence of Indigenous Education, I just see it as the right thing to do for our school district,” Bekkering said.

“We’ve heard so many of the truths, that now is the time for reconciliation, and I feel that our Indigenous education is really providing that reconciliation. It’s giving our students a chance to know their identity, I see them having a real sense of pride in their heritage, and for the non-Indigenous kids, I see they’re gaining an understanding of what historically happened to Indigenous people.”

Bekkering added the district has 3,500 students who have self-identified as Indigenous.

“I see teacher shortages and recruitment and retention is a big issue, but it’s an issue right across the country, and we’re in competition for those teachers everywhere,” she said.

“I think what we need to do is collaborate with all levels of government to come up with a plan of how we’re going to increase the number of young adults who want to go into teaching.”

Bekkering said increasing the salaries of teachers would help attract more people to the profession.

“I think that the amount of dollars coming from the government coming from the government needs to increase so that we can actually have better programming for the special needs students,” she said.

“If we’re going to be inclusive, and have everyone gaining education to the best of their abilities, we need to make sure we have all of the resources we need for that.”

Bekkering added more needs to be done to accommodate the growing number of students within the district.

The School District Elections, along with the Municipal Election, will take place on Saturday, October 15th.

 

Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].

Darin Bain
Darin Bain
Darin is a news reporter for Vista Radio's Prince George stations. His career started in the Cariboo in 2020, working as a News Reporter in both 100 Mile House and Williams Lake before making the move to Prince George in late 2021.

Continue Reading

cjci Now playing play

cirx Now playing play

- Advertisement -

Related Articles

- Advertisement -

Latest News

Hartley’s Sports Shorts; Thursday, October 23rd

WHL: Medicine Hat Tigers  6  Prince George Cougars  3The Tigers scored 4 goals in the 3rd period, two of them 20 seconds apart and the last two into an empty net before 3,229 fans at CN Centre.

Tigers pounce on Cougars lackluster defense

PG drops to 7-3-0-0 and continues its home stretch with a pair of outings against the Seattle Thunderbirds (4-6-0-0) Friday (7pm) and Saturday (6pm) from CN Centre.

BC. Conversative management committee says Rustad should step down as leader

The B.C. Conservative Party's management committee says the party is in turmoil and is calling on John Rustad to immediately step down as leader.

City makes initial “kicks” to join e-scooter pilot

Prince George City Council took the next steps in participating in the province's Electric Kick Scooter Pilot Project.At this week's meeting, City Council gave the firs three readings to amend the City's Highways Bylaw to acknowledge the province's new regulation of "e-scooter" under the Motor Vehicle Act. 

IIO investigating Prince George death in late August

The Independent Investigation Office of B.C. (IIO) is investigating a Prince George man's death.
- Advertisement -