In light of the teachers’ labour dispute and refusal to volunteer in extracurricular activities that extends beyond the school day, concerned parents gathered at DPAC to share ideas, collaborate, and find ways to provide  extracurricular activities (aka. memories, skill development, and experiences) for their children while remaining respectful to teachers.  Parents do not want to be political.  They want to provide learning opportunities via extracurricular activities for their children.  DPAC is a forum for parents to discuss topics of interest with other parents from other schools in the District with hopes of creating ways to make the most of the situation.  It was an awesome dialogical event with parents problem solving and asking questions to make some sense of the public school system.

What I enjoyed most was the DPAC’s immediate sense of community.  They wanted to share resources, work together, and find ways to effectively communicate with each other.  Only a few months ago, a handful of parents at DPAC were asked to brainstorm for the 2012-2015 SD46 Strategic Plan.  Those parents said that with declining enrollment and resources, they wanted to see schools working together to provide the best education we can for our students.  It was so exciting for me to see on May 29th three dozen participants at DPAC working together finding ways to provide the best education (re: extracurricular activities) for our students.  DPAC is working for kids.  With a diverse representation of parents from schools on the Sunshine Coast, parents had a common goal.  They want to provide extracurricular activities to students in the school district so that their learning experiences are not minimized with the labour dispute, declining enrollment, or limited resources.  

I was truly inspired.  The revised SD46 Strategic Plan has not been published yet, but what the SD46 DPAC desired three months ago came to fruition at the May 2012 DPAC meeting.  Congratulations.