Vancouver’s newly elected school board is still a couple weeks away from starting the job, but priorities have already been outlined.
Secretary Treasurer David Green says after the nine trustees are officially sworn in on October 30, the board will need to hire a new superintendent to replace Scott Robinson, who left earlier this year amid rocky times within the district.
“We’re in the process of conducting a search right now, so I think that would be their most important task right off the bat which will hopefully happen in November. After that, the main focus of the board will have to be hiring of teachers to comply with the restored language.”
Green says it’s important because “the superintendent is the sole employee of the board.”
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Green says the district is still short permanent teachers and hundreds of substitute positions.
“Right now we don’t have enough TOC’s (Teacher on Call) on a daily basis so we have some concern about that.”
When the new board is sworn in, appointed trustee Dianne Turner will step down and move into a special adviser role.
Green says trustees will also begin to look at 2018 and 2019 amended budgets.
A board chair will be elected the day trustees are sworn in.
The new board is made up of three Green trustees, three Vision, two NPA and one OneCity trustee.