Jean Robert, CEGEP St. Lawrence Campus Director

On Friday, December 11th, 2009, Stephen Burke and Jean Robert were elected chair and vice-chair of the Central Quebec School Board.

"We plan to follow in the footsteps of Marty Hicks, Edward Murphy and Michèle Morin-Doyle," said Burke in a phone interview.

In the following months, the executive committee will be hard at work on the C.Q.S.B.'s 2009-2013 strategic plan, as well as the partnership agreement with Michelle Courchesne, minister of education, sports and leisure.

"There is a lot of work to do before June 30, 2010," said Burke.

Burke's plan for the school board is to keep it on tract, since it is already an excellent school board. "The administrators, the teachers and the support staff at C.Q.S.B. are exceptional," added Burke.

The C.Q.S.B. has five objectives for the future, and Burke intends on fulfilling them. The school board has to bring the graduation rate, which is now 79%, to 89% by 2020. Students' knowledge of English and French will have to be improved in order for them to be "fluent and orthographically bilingual" by the time they graduate high school.

The school board's elementary schools are full and Burke says it is because "more and more people realize that they can send their children to English schools because of the grandfather clause".

The school board is not experiencing a drop in numbers, contrary to French school boards. Moreover, the retention from elementary schools to high schools is very good, but the school board plans to make it higher.

Jean Robert, who has been involved with C.Q.S.B. since its inception, believes that his work at the C.Q.S.B. compliments his works at Champlain St. Lawrence, since [his] work at the school board helps prepare students for post-secondary education.

"It is nice to be part of a board like C.Q.S.B.", said Robert. He added that every time he walks in a school, "you really feel the love that people have for their students. Our schools really do take care of our students. Our schools are full: that must mean we must do something well."

Robert said the most important people in the school board are the students.

"Every time I make a decision, I ask myself if the decision will help our students."

Robert's priorities also include the side-by-side staff: teachers, secretaries and cleaning people.

He said his most important objective is working on the students' commute time.

"How can students that spend two or three hours on the bus every day be as productive as students that walk 10 minutes to school?" he asked.

He also wants to help teachers with difficult situations, since teachers have to deal with more frequent discipline problems, parents who aren't involved and indifferent communities. "We don't want to run down teachers. They need additional resources and energy to work with special needs students."

Robert praised the C.Q.S.B.'s executive committee.

"We're a good group of commissioners, we work very well together, everybody respects one another and we always want to improve the school board," he said.