Seven trustees currently sit on the Flin Flon School Division (FFSD) board of trustees, but when local elections come up later this fall, several will not run for reelection.
At the board’s first meeting of the 2022-23 school year (and one of their last meetings as a board in their current form), several trustees announced plans to either run for reelection or step back from the board.
Out of five trustees present, only two - Tim Davis and Leslie Fernandes - announced they would run again. Three trustees - Leslie Power, Amy Sapergia Green and Murray Skeavington - will not. Two trustees who were not present at the meeting, Jill Akkerman and Ebony Trubiak, have not yet publicly announced their intentions for the fall election.
The previous term, which has lasted since fall 2018, has brought a series of challenges both expected and unprecedented. Trustees oversaw a declining enrollment at FFSD schools and several capital projects for those schools, including roof repairs, which were part of the division’s long-term plans. What wasn’t part of the plan was more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the provincial government’s attempts to pass Bill 64, a now-aborted bill that would have more or less gutted the role of local school boards and divisions - particularly the province’s smallest public school divisions, like Flin Flon.
Out of the three confirmed trustees who will step away, Skeavington is the longest-tenured, having been first elected in 2002 - only Davis has been on the board as long as him. Skeavington chaired the board for several years and has represented it at several events. That includes the recent annual national meeting of the Canadian School Boards Association (CSBA), where Skeavington represented the board and provided a report to the board during the August 23 meeting.
Skeavington was one of the loudest voices in the north against the Bill 64 effort before the proposed legislation was torpedoed last year. He said at the meeting that he hopes members of the public will step up to run for the board, believing that similar legislation to Bill 64 may be on the horizon, with the province able to point to low turnout or interest as an excuse to consolidate if few people show up.
“I’m not running again. The only thing I’ll say is that this is the one time that you want to make sure we have an election. I think this government is waiting to have people either acclaimed or have to be appointed so they can go ‘we don’t need school divisions, we need a new selection, we need bigger areas,’” he said.
“If people are thinking of running, this would be the time to run.”
Power was elected to the board in 2018 and will not seek reelection, citing the general difficulty of the past four years.
“It's been a really challenging term, I think, between the potential school restructure and COVID-19, in my only term… It hasn't been fun,” she said.
Power is also the only Indigenous member of the board and hopes to see more Indigenous representation on the board in the future.
“I would encourage the community to consider the representation on this board. We're supposed to be representing our community and I don't think we are right now with one Indigenous representative here. I think we need to see more representation here, for our kids and for our community,” she said.
Sapergia Green, who also served for a time as the board’s chair and vice-chair, will also step away from her trusteeship. Sapergia Green has served two terms on the board and was to-the-point about her future plans.
“I’m not running. I’m retiring,” she said.
At least seven candidates are needed to fill the board to capacity. If six or seven candidates file paperwork, all are acclaimed to the board. If more than seven file, then seven trustees will be picked by Flin Flon voters on Oct. 26. If fewer than six file, all candidates will be acclaimed to the board, with the remaining empty spots either appointed by the trustees or selected in a byelection.
