Local Government Week (LGW) aims to increase youth and public awareness about the important role local government plays in our communities. Please join OPSBA, our member trustees and our education partners in raising civic awareness and promoting the role of trustees among Ontario students. We know many trustees visit their schools regularly and we encourage them to consider arranging classroom visits with Grade 5 Social Studies and Grade 10 Civics students to discuss the important democratic role of a school board trustee. As always, trustees should follow their board protocols for setting up school visits when determining the most appropriate time for these visits. These could in fact, occur, after the official LGW when a classroom teacher is discussing this unit.
OPSBA has updated resources to facilitate your classroom sessions, including a Word document and a short PowerPoint presentation. Common information includes:
- Facts and figures
- A brief history of the role of trustees
- Why trustees matter
- The “rules” of school in Ontario
- The legislated responsibilities of a school board and its trustees
- A brief outline of the people in a school board
- Questions and discussion points for you to consider
- Questions and discussion points for you to ask the class
Both documents have been created in a manner that allows you to modify them for use in either a Grade 5 or 10 classroom and to add local board information.
The social media hashtag for Local Government Week is #LocalGovWeek.
For more, visit our School Board Governance hub!
