CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOARD: In it for the community

“I’m in it for the community, the families, the students,” says Leanne Prince, explaining her motivation for running for the trustee position with the Niagara Catholic District School Board (NCDSB).

Prince, a mother of two boys who attend St. Joseph School in Grimsby, said her involvement on the school’s Catholic School Committee, the parent advisory committee, as well the regional version of that committee, the Niagara Catholic Parent Involvement Committee (NCPIC), is what inspired her to run for the trustee position.

Attending the NCPIC meetings, and taking that information back to her school’s advisory committee, lead Prince to realize that few parents know what is happening at the board level.

“Parents aren’t getting the information—either they’re not looking or they have no reason to ask,” explains Prince.

“So much goes on at the board level and we don’t hear about it.” Noting she has personally gone looking for information on school or board policies and found only documents written in legalese, Prince says there are no “Coles notes” for those policies.

“I’m willing to ask the questions, I’m willing to say I don’t understand,” says Prince, adding that as trustee she plans to be the person members of the Catholic school community in Pelham, West Lincoln, Grimsby and Beamsville can turn to when they have questions or need more information on what’s happening at the board.

“I have a long-term vested interest” in the success of Catholic education in Niagara, says Prince, noting at a minimum it will be 10 years before her youngest graduates from high school.

“I want to see the Catholic school board flourish” the way it has in the recent past with good graduation rates and success in provincial testing she says. When it was time for her oldest son, who is heading to Grade 7 this September, to register for kindergarten in Grimsby, Prince says she got an instant “warm and fuzzy” feeling the minute she walked into St. Joseph, noting the secretary and principal spent two hours with her talking about the school, new construction plans and the kindergarten program.

She has felt the warm and fuzzy feeling at every level of her interaction with the board and it has extended to her boys as well. That feeling, or the atmosphere of welcoming and caring that creates that feeling, is something she wants to preserve and ensure other families feel when entering the school system.

Without having access to current budget information Prince says she can’t say for sure what, if any, major issues may be facing the NCDSB for the coming school years, but says one of her concerns was the lockout in 2017 when neither the teachers nor school board were talking leading up to the lockout. Saying it was “frustrating” that neither side was willing to talk, Prince says the school board, the teachers, the families and the parishes all had the same goal and all need to communicate and work together to reach those goals.

As for the major issue facing all school boards this year, the changes in sex-ed curriculum made by the provincial government, Prince says as a parent she has no issue with the 2015 version of the curriculum and feels the way it was introduced, with an option for parents to have their children opt out of those classes if they had concerns about what their child would be learning, was the right approach to ensure those who welcomed the updated information and those who had concerns could be accommodated.

“I have a great, open relationship with my boys,” and talks about these issues with them says Prince, adding she does understand why some parents might be concerned about what is taught and when.

Aside from specific issues, Prince says she simply wants parents to feel more involved, the Niagara West to feel more involved and to see more extracurricular activities for the schools in this riding. Prince, who filed to run in the election in July, before it was known that the incumbent, Father Paul MacNeil, was not going to seek re-election, said she put a lot of thought into her decision to run, talked to her husband at length and sought input from her friends.

Her husband, she said, encouraged her to run, saying her involvement in the school system was her calling and her passion and she should seek election for the trustee position. Her friends, she added, told her she was nuts, but “in the best possible way.”

Prince is one of four candidates running for the trustee position for the Catholic school Board, including Lawrence Alexander of Grimsby, Peter Dief of Fonthill, and Robert Ruggieri of Beamsville. Municipal council and school board elections will take place on Monday, October 22, 2018.