Parents from across Rocky Mountain School District 6 have reignited the flames of an old advisory body with the rebuilding of a District Parent’s Advisory Committee (DPAC).

Nadine Hale is an Invermere parent who has joined the freshly-regrouped DPAC. She says the desire to connect parents across the district came about as a result of a controversial discussion by the school board regarding long term facility planning.

“When it came to a District-wide issue, it became clear that we needed a body bigger than our school PACs,” says Hale.

While that issue has been resolved, DPAC members moving forward want to be proactive in their approach to district-wide issues.

“We want parents of the school district to know how valued and important our parent voice is in forming the educational environment of our children,” she says.

DPAC’s vision statement, formed at their most recent meeting in May, is that the DPAC encourages and enables the parent voice in partnership with families, students, educators and school district representatives to achieve the best outcome for every child.

Currently, there are members represented from each of the three zones (Windermere, Kimberly and Golden). They would eventually like to see representation from every school in the district.

“The more parent representation we have, the stronger our voice will be,” says Hale, adding that even though each school can only have one voting member on DPAC, as many parents as are interested are welcome to attend meetings.

At their informal meeting held in May, the DPAC members found common threads in their diverse stories.

“In common we share a huge hope and tremendous positive energy in forming an educational environment that achieves the best outcome for every child in our schools,” says Hale.

SD6 Superintendent Paul Carriere says while a DPAC has operated informally in the district in the past, it has not been an active organization since 2012.

“The District is pleased to be working with our new DPAC group,” says Mr. Carriere.

Hale says the DPAC’s next steps are to continue to learn about school district policies, programs and activities, and how to best achieve their aims. DPAC’s objectives are to promote the interests of public education by fostering cooperation and communication, to advise the school board on parental views about school district programs and activities, to communicate with PACs about school district policies, programs and activities, and to provide leadership in developing and understanding rights and responsibilities of parents within the education system.

In the Windermere zone, there is a member representing Edgewater Elementary (Cielle Cowles), Ms. Hale for JA Laird Elementary, Chenoa Paccagnan for Eileen Madson, Michelle Rievaj for Windermere Elementary and Candy Alfonso for Martin Morigeau Elementary. Currently there is no representative from DTSS.

For more information, contact DPAC at dpac@sd6.bc.ca