Educational Issues in Nanaimo

Due to cuts in education over the last several years, a general deterioration of the climate between teachers and their employers, education all over BC and in Nanaimo has suffered. The reason for this blog's existence is that many of these education issues only concern a subset of the population who are directly affected by these education cuts—parents, their kids, teachers and their employers, but these are not always of interest to the general population. The Nanaimo Edutopia blog is about education in Nanaimo.

During the last Municipal election most people were exclusively focussed on the New Nanaimo Convention Centre (NNC) deal. Nanaimo saw a record high number of councillor candidates and largely un-noticed was the record low number of new faces on the school district trustee candidate roster.

The Nanaimo School district 68, the largest employer in Nanaimo, employs approximately 1,400 full-time equivalent employees, enrols 15,608 students, and has an annual operating budget of $111 million—that is $111 million of your provincial taxes.

This blog is for parents, students, educators and those who are passionate about education. It is a blog that is moderated by a parent and an educational professional. Its intent is to provide an online forum for educational debates, fact-finding, problem solving, and advocacy for students’ needs in this region.

To post an issue email it to NanaimoEdutopia@hotmail.com. To comment on a blog post click on the comment link at the bottom of the article you want to comment on and a "Post a comment" screen will open. Then click on the “no blogger account?” link. A new window (1) “Create and Account” will open up. Select a username and password, verify your password, select the display name (that is the name that will show up as the author of the comment—your online persona), and enter your email address, then click on the continue arrow. If you have selected a blog username that no one else has, this will put you in the next screen (2) where you are asked to “name your blog”. This means you now have a username to comment on this blog. If you only want to post a comment exit this screen and go back to the “Post a comment screen”. There you should enter your new username and password, enter your comment in the textbox and click on publish. Once you have a username you only need to log on to post a comment. Also by selecting anonymous post it will be anonymous, and if you email your post your identity and email will not be published unless you want it to be. However, selecting an online name is helpful if you wish to comment in the future under the same name. Also creating a hotmail email account gets around identifying yourself.

Moderators will filter out name calling or otherwise inappropriate content. Think of your objective, try to document your statements, avoid sarcasm (if possible), and have someone, who cares about your reputation, review it before you publish or send it. Moderators cannot edit comments for errors as the Nanaimo Edutopia blog engine only allows us to either accept or reject the comments.