More people participating than suggested by school district
Editor: I am glad to hear that Sandy Wakeling at the School District 35 office (The Times, Feb. 26) wants to see more than 10 per cent of parents submitting input for the calendars, but I’m concerned with his math as well as expectations and what this means for concerned parents.
Wakeling suggests that “just 3,000” submissions have been received. He assumes that because there are approximately 20,000 students there must be 30,000 parents and voila — “just 10 per cent.”
Sorry, but am I missing something? The district has but one email address for my family of five — mine. I filled out that email. I filled it out, representing one Grade 1 child, one in Preschool, and one Preschool-to be, as well as for my wife — because she didn’t receive the link.
Be realistic — many of these households have two kids and you have one email address. Instead of fabricating numbers about the number of parents, why not tell us how many emails went out for starters?
Is the district expecting people to go out of their way and fish around? I’m sorry, but we have an electorate in which only 25 per cent vote for their city council, and I can guarantee that the proportion of people aged 25-40 with kids who vote is much lower than 25 per cent. My guess is that the “just 3,000” responses so far is much greater than “just 10 per cent.”
If this was a binding referendum, I wouldn’t be concerned. Since we’ve seen the “silent majority” excuse allow government bodies to do what they want, I’m extremely concerned.
Brad Richert,
Langley
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