School District 69 (Qualicum) will soon form a climate action plan through one of their task forces.
At the latest school board meeting, the task force offered an update on their work.
Trustee Julie Austin said the committee discussed the creation of a climate action plan for the district and that she and trustee Barry Kurland will work on the “skeletal bare bones” of a plan. The plan would eventually end up “winding its way” to the school board table for approval, after being deal with by other task force members and then put before the education committee and finance and operation committee.
“It’ll have lots of opportunity for input and suggestions. I see it as a document of sorts that helps us set targets and goals for our district,” said Austin.
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She hopes they will have plenty of student input through the school council at Kwalikum Secondary School and the leadership group at Bellenas Secondary.
“Hopefully that stimulates other people to get involved even if just through email.”
Kurland said the “energy level” for the climate action meetings is increasing.
“It’s really a sort of potential energy hill that we’ve gone over and its becoming self-perpetuating. People bring these ideas back and those lead to other ideas. So I’m happy that we’re in the right place at the right time.”
According to Austin, a member of the Arrowsmith Groundwater Alliance was present at their last meeting and promoted their blue communities concept. Austin said they’ve asked her to return and talk about how to ‘operationalize’ their suggestions, and hinted at the possibility of the concept being incorporated into their climate action plan.