Brent Zbaraschuk wants to give back to Prince Albert as a candidate for trustee in the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division election on Nov. 9.
“The biggest thing is I grew up in a family that believed in putting back into the community that you have taken things from,” Zbaraschuk’s said.
“I always believe that when you have knowledge and some dedication to your community why wouldn’t you put back into your community. We sure took a lot out of as individuals,” he said.
His children began their education at Meath Park Public School before moving to John Diefenbaker Public School in Prince Albert. Both children have attended Carlton Comprehensive High School with one already graduated and one currently in Grade 11. He explained that having proper resources for teachers to succeed is important to him.
“Whether it is classroom resources or skill development and career development for the teacher. Over the last few years we have seen positions such as the educational assistant being removed or cut out of some of our schools throughout the system and I think that we have to start looking at strategic planning on putting resources and time and money at the beginning of a child’s educational career,” Zbaraschuk explained.
He also believes that these resources at the beginning of a school career are a benefit.
“How you are exposed (to resources) is a big outlook on your outcomes and how they will turn out to be. Are you good in school and are you able to be successful,” he said.
Strategic planning is one aspect from his career that he wants to bring to the board table. This would be so the division has a better idea of where they are going.
“I am saying that any organization has to have a line of sight. And not only a line of sight of where you want to be and what your goals and ambitions and markers are going to be, then you need an action plans and how do we get our strategic plan built right down to the person that is walking into kindergarten,” he explained.
He is currently employed with the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency as a regional fire response coordinator duty officer. He formerly worked as a senior manger in the Ministry of the Environment for wildfire management in northern Saskatchewan. This background is why strategic planning is important to him.
“I was exposed to what we call risk and strategic planning and a lot of that is just for things like COVID-19. Our organization and government it was one of the risks to government and one of the risks to people. What we did was we looked at the risk and we tried to figure out how do we mitigate that risk so that there is less of a negative outcome for the citizens of Saskatchewan,” he explained.
With a school division, risk management would be used to understand what is on the horizon and how to react to it so it doesn’t negatively affect either students or parents.
Zbarashcuk also brings a wealth of experience on many boards.
“I sit on the board at the library as the chair of the Prince Albert Public Library, but I was also the vice president of the Saskatchewan Hockey Association for 15 years I was involved in that. I was the president of the East End Community Club and actually was the president of the Prince Albert Youth Soccer Association,” Zbaraschuk said.
Zbaraschuk is happy to see so many people running for trustee this election.
“I wish everybody luck, I think everybody that is running is good and everyone brings good assets. I always say you have to have a wide view sitting at the board table, you can’t just have one segment of society sitting at the board table,” he said.
