by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
Friday, October 19 ~ WEST SHORE.
Ravi Parmar will likely still chair the October 23 meeting of the Sooke School District 62 (SD62) board. That’s after the October 20 election — and who knows who will win — but the new board won’t be sworn in until SD62’s November 13 meeting.
Parmar served his first term on the SD62 board during 2014-2018. He is the youngest member of the outgoing board, and himself a graduate of Belmont Secondary in Langford.
In the October 12th print/PDF issue of West Shore Voice News, (pages 17 to 19) all candidates for SD62 provided their comments on their vision and goals if they win a seat for 2018-2022.
Here are Parmar’s comments from within that feature:
Vision: My vision is to continue the work set out by the Board and our educational partners in the SD62 Strategic Plan. Ensuring we have a strong learning agenda that strives to support our students in their achievements, engagement with our constituents as the representative assembly and growth, working hard to get capital dollars to build new schools.
Improvements: Improvements are set out in our strategic plan. My big priority is growth, and my short term and long term plan are to advocate for capital dollars and build new schools on-time and on-budget.
Learning Outcomes: By engaging with partners in education, SD62 has a plan to increase graduation rates and student success. Away we will do this is by engaging with our students and promoting their voice in our decision making.
Social-Emotional Learning: Our focus on social-emotional learning is showing in our graduation rates and student achievement. All of our students need to be engaged citizens. That is what we strive for in SD62.
Experience: As Board Chair I have experience with all of these things. Under my leadership, we have improved governance, transparency in budget development and found new ways to engage with constituents.
There are eight candidates running for the four (4) seats in the SD62 Belmont Zone (voters in Langford, Colwood, Metchosin and parts of Highlands and View Royal can vote for these candidates). Of the eight candidates, three are incumbents: Wendy Hobbs, Ravi Parmar, and Dianna Seaton. Any of the other five candidates would be new to the board level if they win on October 20: Cendra Beaton, Bob Beckett, Russ Chipps, Blair Sloane, and Trudy Spiller.
Three (3) other three seats on the seven-seat SD62 board are filled by three winners from the Milne’s Landing Zone (Sooke and Juan de Fuca voters).
General Voting Day is Saturday, October 20 from 8 am to 8 pm.
Links: www.raviparmar.com | Twitter: @rparmarsd62