Familiar face on school trustee byelection ballot

The resumé of a candidate running for school trustee in River Park South has caught the attention of residents and longtime trustees alike.

“I’ve never heard of a former minister of education coming back to run for school board trustee,” said Alan Campbell, president of the Manitoba School Boards Association.

Former NDP MLA Peter Bjornson is one of three candidates competing for an opening in Ward 3 of the Louis Riel School Division.

His rivals, Winnipeg lawyer Susanne Dandenault and Ben Singer, whose online biography states he works in “front-line facility services,” are both parents of school-aged children in the division.

Bjornson’s latest bid for public office is a testament to the value of this hyperlocal and often overlooked position, said Campbell, a veteran trustee in the Interlake School Division.

Campbell called Manitoba’s former education minister “the voice” in kindergarten-to-Grade 12 policy-making.

He noted that, in stark contrast, “A trustee is one voice in a group.”

Two metro divisions, LRSD and Pembina Trails, are both hosting byelections on Oct. 25. Each board is filling a vacancy related to a colleague’s sudden death in the spring.

School board elections — let alone byelections — consistently record the worst voter turnout of all levels of government.

In response to the now-defunct Bill 64 (the Education Modernization Act), the school boards association has ramped up efforts to engage voters and recruit potential candidates in recent years.

The Progressive Conservatives’ 2021 proposed legislation would have made the association extinct. It called for replacing 37 elected school boards with a handful of regional entities run by government appointees.

At the time, the Progressive Conservative government cited the prevalence of uncontested trustee races and dismal voter turnout. Former premier Brian Pallister stepped down amid public outcry over his controversial reforms.

Bjornson said his interest in K-12 education didn’t disappear when he left the legislature in 2015, or when the last of his three children graduated from LRSD during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The former NDP MLA for Gimli oversaw the education portfolio for a combined six and a half years between 2003 and 2015, under both the Doer and Selinger governments.

Bjornson was a high school teacher before he entered politics. He currently delivers student-teacher courses, including “The School System: Structure and Dynamics,” at the University of Winnipeg.

Manitoba’s Public Schools Act requires a board to organize a byelection if a vacancy occurs more than 12 months prior to the next general election. The circumstances, whether it’s the result of a death, resignation or otherwise, do not matter.

The president of the school boards association called that clause, which is resulting in costly polls across the province this month that will be redone in a year’s time, “a bit of a headscratcher.”

“It would be valuable to review that timeline,” Campbell said.

Winnipeg residents will elect a mayor, city council and school trustees for a new four-year term on Oct. 28, 2026 — just over a year after LRSD and Pembina Trails welcome new representatives.

Campbell said that communities suffer when their local school board is down one or more representatives, but the money spent on 11th-hour byelections could be directed towards classrooms.

The Brandon School Division held a byelection, which was triggered after a trustee quit in March, on Thursday.

Less than 24 hours after winning her campaign, rookie trustee Shawna Mozdzen said she’s ready to do it again next year if she enjoys the job.

“I’m just so grateful how many people came out this time. I wasn’t sure if the turnout would even be 11 per cent — usually it’s a little bit less than that,” said Mozdzen, a self-described outlier in that she’s paid close attention to trustee races for as long as she can remember.

Mozdzen, an experienced educational assistant and Indigenous student support worker, served on her children’s elementary and middle school parent councils.

The initial results show just over 11 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots in the byelection. She won 57 per cent of the vote.

Both the late LRSD trustee Darlene Gerrior and Stu Nixon, who represented Ward 1 in Pembina Trails, were midway through their first terms.

Gerrior, a former teacher, student-services coordinator and board vice-chair in LRSD, went on medical leave last year. She died in April.

Nixon, an award-winning football coach in Pembina Trails who’d only recently retired from a 35-year teaching career, died five weeks later.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca