The Polical Action Committee (PAC) of Local 474 produced a information package for all Trustee Candidates, as well as a quesionnaire that Candidates were asked to fill in an return to us.

We interviewed a majority of candidates over a two week period. This was done jointly with CUPE Local 3550 which represents the 1400 support staff in the district.

Our issues were: Privatization, Contracting Out, Corporate Partnerships in Schools, Use of Volunteers, Lobbying the Government for more funding, need for vocational education for students, willingness to review or restrict school based funding/management, working alone, staffing levels. To name a few.

See our home page for more on these issues.

We did not get responses from some candidates. We were rather disappointed at the lack of knowledge a lot of candidates had around these issues.

• Trustees trounced
  The union representing the public school board's custodial workers has slammed 13 trustee candidates for supporting corporate sponsorships in schools. The union, representing 600 custodial workers, has endorsed seven candidates for their willingness to fight against the underfunding of education, said local president Doug Luellman Luellman. They are Bill Bonko, Janice Melnychuk, Mel Huizinga, Karl Kuss, Carol Anne Dean, Donna Fong and George Nicholson. Bonko, Melnychuk, Dean and Fong were also endorsed by the Edmonton District Labour Council.
  

  You have to hand it to proactive labour union CUPE Local 474, representing public school custodians. The union's using its muscle to get "labour and labour-friendly" candidates elected to the Edmonton Public School Board. In a memo to all school custodians and phone calls to all its members, CUPE is urging its members to vote for incumbents Bill Bonko, Janice Melnychuk, and, surprise, surprise, current chairman George Nicolson, plus lefty newcomers like well-known Carol Anne Dean and Donna Fong. (How come former New Democrat MLA and current trustee Gerry Gibeault is not on the list?) That's democracy. Too bad the right isn't half as well organized. The bad part, of course, is the union could be too successful. Imagine a school board controlled by its unions. Scary.
  Graham Hicks, edmonton Sun Columnist, Sunday Sun, October 18, 1998

• Passion lacking in trustees, head of school boards says
  The head of the Public School Boards Association of Alberta has challenged prospective trustees to be passionate politicians, not managers. "This is not the board of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and this is not the board of the YMCA that we are talking about," Dave King said at a candidates' forum organized Wednesday night by the parent group Key Communicators. "The board needs courage and passion and outrage about wrongs," King said, challenging the trustees to channel their outrage to fight for justice.
  
• No perks or power and lots of headaches
  Edmonton - They get little recognition, no perks, can't remember when they last got a pay raise and their political power has been stripped by the province. Yet, the vast majority of trustees with the Edmonton public school board are running for re-election in the municipal elections Oct. 19th. It's an anonymous race," says University of Alberta political scientist Jim Lightbody. "No one knows and few people care." "The job has always been a thankless one," agrees Frank Peters with the university's department of educational policy studies. "But it's becoming even more thankless now."
  

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