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If trustee elections were cookies, Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA) President Heather Wellwood would say she was more than satisfied with the batch baked in 2010.
“We’re quite pleased that we reduced the acclamation rate in Alberta,” said Wellwood. The acclamation rate for trustee elections held across Alberta on October 18 was 47 per cent, significantly down from the mid-60 per cent range reached in the 2007 elections. “We were really doing a lot of extra work communicating the importance of Albertans having the ability to choose their trustees and to have trustees reflect their values.”
The hard work paid off, but Wellwood quickly acknowledged other contributing factors. “What we found was that the discussions that have been happening in education over the past couple of years, particularly Inspiring Education, has brought some people forward who might not have paid attention before,” she said.
“The other unique thing we saw this time around that we’d never seen before was campaigning through social media. The traditional methods of forums and erecting lawn signs were one way, but, particularly in Edmonton and Calgary, candidates had Facebook pages, blogs ... they were Twittering. There were candidates who even had PayPal on their websites so that people could donate to their campaigns if they wanted to.”
Voter turnout for the municipal elections varied from pretty good to dismal across the province. Rimbey’s turnout of 60 per cent was astounding. Calgary’s, at 53 per cent, was also high. Edmonton had 33 per cent turnout, up about 5 per cent from the previous election. And in Red Deer, only 25 per cent of eligible voters took advantage of their opportunity to influence who would make decisions for that city. But whatever the voter turnout rate, it seemed more people were engaged in education issues.
“I’m really pleased to see that various people are getting interested in education,” said Wellwood, who is meeting many of the new trustees at sessions that ASBA is conducting. She doesn’t yet have the official statistics to back up her observations, but Wellwood said she had been noticing more men serving on boards. “Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot more men. Attending these sessions [are] young fathers to grandfathers,” she said.
The results from this year’s trustee elections run the gamut from boards having all candidates elected to all candidates acclaimed. There are interesting mixes of trustees—new and incumbent, younger and older, and male and female. Indeed, if these trustee elections were cookies, they would be of the assorted variety and very satisfying.
And the secret ingredients? After this election, one might guess: Add a giant helping of education issues, mix in large amounts of hard work and garnish generously with social media. Voila!
