Daniel Westley (candidate for School Trustee District 43 – Port Moody) speaks with Brad Nickason (We’ve Got Issues). Daniel moved to Port Moody five years ago and has a background in insurance and banking and disabled sports. He has two children in Grade 5. Daniel hopes to provide freshness from a perspective of allocating funds when the school wants to make priorities on structure, programs, or buildings. There has been a divide with programming now being top-down instead of bottom-up. The parents are not involved. If parents knew what was going on in the classroom and with the curriculum, they could help with programming and support the kids. School programming is coming down from the school board and the parents are not part of that according to Daniel and they feel left out. At present some teachers are reaching out to parents and letting them know what’s happening in the class and what activities are available. Daniel would like to be there as a school trustee to support this. The school system has been losing parents and students over the past two decades. Parents need to have trust in the system, and this comes with open communication. Parents should be speaking to their kids. As a School Trustee, Daniel would ensure that extra-curricular programming, buildings, and finances are allocated to improve that dynamic. When parents are not involved in their children’s upbringing then kids go into private schooling or home-schooling which takes them out of the public school system. Daniel says the public school system is a ‘gem’, but lack of communication between parents and teachers, and the top-down approach is causing the loss of students. The system needs to embrace a unified approach and dialogue between teachers and parents needs to happen at an individual level about the child. Teachers are already pressed for time, and they do communicate. However, teachers need to be responsive to the individual needs of the child. Finances are tight and a school trustee’s job is to properly allocate funds. Daniel would like to see more transparency, so parents can be engaged and see where the challenges are in the school system. Parents Voice are independent candidates, sharing ideas.