Jessie Bishop - Medicine Hat School and Community Advocate

701 votes!

To those 701 people who voted for me, with all my gratitude I can’t thank you enough for your trust in me. I am beyond words on how much that meant to me.

A change was needed in the current trustees and with one not returning and four incumbents going in, I am ecstatic that there are 3 new individuals with new perspectives voted in. I asked people to look into the district and I feel they did and I feel with change comes new opportunities and vision and I hope to see this happen. Congratulations to Catherine, Gwendoline, Megan, Patrick and Quinn.

When entering I had zero expectations.
I deliberately delayed my campaign launch till the 1st of October as it was never about winning for me. I was both shocked and intrigued at some of the response I got on my few posts. Combined with the teacher strike, I took a step back, I decided not to do the two public interviews I had planned and didn’t post about a dozen posts. My message was resonating:

11 posts total
4 of those were shares from another source , so I really only posted 7 actual campaign posts in 3 weeks.

27,265 people viewed my content
2370 people engaged with my content
2.8 thousand views on 1 video
$0 spent and all organic engagement.

I had a realization when looking at the bigger picture. While I know I would have brought some value to the trustee position , I stepped back from campaigning because I feel also being able to shine light on things within the district to publicly advocate for some changes is also a good thing.

I am still going to be a raw parent perspective who sees things a little differently, who will be advocating for parents and public in our local school district and I will be bringing forward some policy flaws I see, some suggestions and ideas on ways we can do things better and will be doing so publicly. I am also going to bring some think outside the box ideas forward that I didn’t in my campaign.

So thank you again to everyone who did trust me with your vote and hope you stay involved in the discussions coming forward as I am not done yet.

Public school boards are publicly elected to serve their communities. Trustees on these boards are accountable, transparent and fiscally responsible in governing their school division. Boards follow a comprehensive assurance framework every year to ensure they’re fulfilling their legislated responsibilities to families, staff and constituents.

You have a say in who represents you. Review your trustee candidates, and see who aligns with what you’d like to see for your child and all the other children in your community. A strong board of trustees is the cornerstone of an effective public school education for all.

Your voice matters, and your vote matters. Make it count this October.

September 10, 2024 board meeting minutes.

Do you see what is wrong?

These meetings minutes were adopted on September 24th, 2024 as official public record and accurate.

Having a recorded meeting start time of
8:04 am is an obvious error that i think would be apparent to most seeing this…. I immediately noticed it when opening up these minutes on the board website.

Are we actually doing our due diligence and reviewing things properly and as thoroughly as we should? How is it that the many people who are supposed to review these minutes to make sure they are factually and accurately correct didn’t see this?

Humans make mistakes, we all do, however if we actually made public recordings of our board meetings there would not be questions on accuracy which is a part of good governance.

Policy fact check:

We don’t publicly stream our board meetings. Other districts do.

This is actually written in our policy and has been since prior to 2019 so this hasn’t been in consideration for over 6 years and many feel it’s time to make our meetings accessible and available to the public and for accountability and accuracy.

It’s 2025 and there are zero reasons to not publicly stream these meetings and catch up with other schools in the province and it would not cost a significant amount to do so.

Good governance and good policy go together.

The other day I made a statement that our district is falling behind and we are becoming less transparent. A commenter suggested I was spreading “misinformation” and inferred I am uneducated on policy. I have extensive training in policy making so i thought we should look at this policy a little closer.

Let’s look at policy and analyze it. The first picture is the current policy the next picture is the policy changes highlighted in yellow that were made in December 2019 that was added to this policy. (Had to go back to the minutes to find the old one) You will notice clause 1.7 was added which reads:

1.7 other topics that a majority of trustees present decide that is in the public matter to hold the matter in private.

This above clause is too vague and gives the potential for it to be abused as it allows any topic to be discussed behind closed doors as long as it is agreed upon.

So when looking at the recording of public meetings and adding the time spent in closed, the math adds up to 60% of meetings in closed doors. When looking at some of the minutes i question the need for some of the closed door sessions. (Post upcoming to show you examples)

So when a clause gets added to a policy that is vague in nature that allows you to go into private sessions with no real defined guidelines other than a majority in agreement , I would say that my statement that we are becoming less transparent as a trustee board would be factually correct by the very policy we changed in 2019.

This week I am going to go thru our district policy and will be making posts highlighting things in the district that could be done better.

I said from the beginning that I put my name forth with the ultimate goal of talking about some of these issues that dont get talked about. No signs, no perfectly curated facebook posts making promises. Just raw real issues and breaking down the ways we can improve policy.

Public education is important and we need to put the public and the parent back into the public education system.

World Teachers’ Day looks a little different this year.
Today marks a historic moment in Alberta’s history. Over 20,000 teachers and supporters gathered at the Legislature to stand up for something bigger than ourselves - the future of public education. Starting tomorrow, 51,000 Alberta teachers begin strike action - without pay - in the hope of creating lasting, meaningful change for our students, both now and in the future.

Happy World Teachers’ Day. Here’s to standing strong, together. ❤️📚✊🌎👨‍🏫

Trust and accountability are key aspects to being a trustee.

When we compare to other districts we are falling behind and we are becoming less transparent.

60% of the 2024 Medicine Hat School Division board meetings last year were conducted in closed sessions.

Calgary, Grande Prairie, Edmonton and Lethbridge all have online access and publicly available video of meetings. Our district does not.

Most also have more open financial records and you can actually see records of receipts,and expenses for all trustees. Our district does not.

Our districts meeting minutes have gotten less detailed, and we used to do MONTHLY trustee reports which they reported on what they did, that ceased in 2018.

Trustees need to show accountability to us as the public and can do more to be transparent.

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign….

Great news, you will not see a sign from me.

After spending 2 year’s fundraising, and working on trying to build a new playground at our school for the community, I personally can’t justify spending money on signs.

If you support public education, I do encourage you to make a donation to your local school council in your neighbourhood school or if you want to message me I will tell you where you can go to donate to an awesome accessible community playground being built at a local school.

Happy Friday folks!

September 2025 Public School Division Board meeting highlights

Take a moment to review the highlights from our September 2025 Board meeting. https://sway.cloud.microsoft/7xNg0zceYijwvMZu?ref=Link