Yellowknife needs more school trustees. Could you do it?

Shirley Zouboules wants you to shape a vision for public education.

Two Yellowknife school boards hold elections next month. Just like the municipal election, the big day is October 19 and you can vote at the same polling stations.

However, any election needs candidates. As of Tuesday morning, returning officer Eve Erasmus said each seven-person school board only had one candidate running in its election to date.

That number is expected to grow. Incumbents and newcomers alike have until Monday next week to submit their papers.

Even so, Zouboules – superintendent of the YK1 school district – is hoping she can help inspire more people to consider being a trustee.

“It isn’t managing the day-to-day running of a school or operational things,” she told Cabin Radio.

“Our public resources, our budget, long-term strategic planning, policies – those are the things that really provide direction for us as a district. Those are really important.”

Increasingly, Zouboules said, the role is about advocacy. Schools in the NWT find themselves in a fight for funding after 2025 changes to the federal Jordan’s Principle and Inuit Child First Initiative programs removed tens of millions of dollars from education across the territory.

“As a publicly elected official, they can provide that liaison between families and the territorial, even federal government,” said Zouboules of trustees. “Advocacy is really, really important.”

Yellowknife Catholic Schools is the other school board holding an election.

Adam Murray said a trustee basically has three roles: hire and supervise the superintendent (“That’ll be me,” he added), approve the budget and create policies that govern the schools.

In a normal month, he said, a YCS board member might expect to attend one regular board meeting and one to two committee meetings. You don’t need to be Catholic, he clarified.

Agreeing with Zouboules that advocacy is a big part of the job, Murray set out some of the issues an incoming trustee might expect to be dealing with.

“After the summer, a lot of people from across the Northwest Territories were looking at our graduation rates. In the city they’re fairly good, but it’s not something we can rest on,” Murray said.

“Within the territory overall, we all need to work together to ensure every student is successful. But it doesn’t just start in Grade 12. That journey starts in junior kindergarten and goes all the way through their JK to 12 experience.

“We need to ensure the board understands the issues students are facing, that they approve a budget that aligns with key and core goals that will ensure our students are literate, they’re numerate, they’re included, and they have spiritual faith that is supported.”

Zouboules places a premium on trustees who will actively consider all of the students in their school system.

“What would all of the students benefit from? Whether that is safe facilities or particular programming, it can go from very, very broad to more specific, such as healthy foods in schools. I’m thinking about: what would a trustee bring to all of our kids in the district?” she said.

“The trustee isn’t expected to solve a problem in the moment. They are expected to bring that information back to the people who can operationalize that thing, whatever it is the person might be looking to resolve.

“I’m an optimist. I think the folks of Yellowknife will have a lot of really positive things to bring.”

If you think you might have what it takes, you can find out more about putting your name forward via the websites of Yellowknife Education District No 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools.

Murray says he has seen first-hand what it means to trustees when they get it right.

“Our board just passed a very important policy that they’ve been working on for a very long time,” he said, referring to a policy governing safe and caring, respectful, inclusive working and learning environments.

“In August it passed through third reading and that was an amazing moment. Everyone clapped. Everyone was so happy. It was years and years of work,” said Murray.

“That encapsulates the type of role it is in society. It’s not operational. It doesn’t go in and hire teachers. It doesn’t go in and supervise a recess, lead a basketball game or teach a math lesson.

“It’s about governance. It’s about a vision.”