Abbotsford school trustees traded barbs on Jan. 21 related to a letter from the B.C. School Trustees Association announcing a call to action for school districts to prioritize climate change mitigation.
Trustee Jared White requested that the letter, which was originally set for a consent item, be moved to an area where trustees could comment publicly.
White stated that a trustee's role is to provide a world-class educational experience for students and not to fight climate change.
"Realistically with something as large as climate – I mean we can't even predict the weather – to think anything we can do in our school district could actually impact climate is factually untrue," he said during the monthly board meeting. "This is, in my opinion, virtue signalling. I oppose the spirit of this call to action."
Trustee Korky Neufeld, who is also the Abbotsford West MLA, said he believed the letter was related to forest fires in B.C. – but that the debate about climate change is not something schools need to be involved in.
"You can find scientists on both sides who say both things," he said. "Canada's emissions are so small compared to the world's emissions. I think we should stick to education, but there are things we can teach about climate change."
He called parts of the letter "alarmist" in nature.
"Do you actually think what we do in the public school system can make that much of a shift in the climate change," he asked. "Can we teach things about the climate and how we can better take care of our planet? Absolutely."
He equated doing local work on climate change as putting a glass of tap water into the ocean to make it unsalty.
Trustee Stan Petersen said he disagreed with White and Neufeld.
"I think it's extremely important that we teach kids about climate change and we model good practices that relates to that," he said. "We have as a school district done a number of things to cut down our CO2 emissions. Whether it's a drop in the bucket or not, I think we have to as school district take climate change as a serious issue and not talking about it or teaching it in schools is irresponsible."
Trustee Mike Rauch said that climate mitigation is embedded all over society and expressed concern that the document was too activist.
"I would hate to divert precious resources away from our core areas of strategic focus," he said.
Trustee Rupi Kanda-Rajwan added that children need to know about fires and flood and what is happening around them.
Trustee Preet Rai stated that even small differences can add up.
"There was a saying when we were young that drop, drop drop and the bucket gets filled," he said. "If we do our little bit of share and the world does their little bit of share we will get to a better environment. I think this is more directed to forest fires and the flooding that happened here and let's find a way to make that better."
The call to action includes ideas for trustees to help with climate action through: enhanced governance and support for climate action, recognizing the impact of climate change on school districts, and recommendations for future planning and growth in climate action.
