With voting in the School Board 5 election race taking place April 24, both candidates have stated their final positions for the voters going to the polls Saturday.

First time candidate Jan Gordon-Hooker describes herself as a “team player” that believes in a collaborative approach to problem solving while Walkley describes himself as an “independent” who does not believe in group thinking on the board.

“I'm running as an independent and I'm not part of the slate that ran in the last election,” says Walkley. Gordon-Hooker says she has no agenda in running other than seeing that schools are run efficiently “while facing the challenge presented by cutbacks.”

In terms of the nearly $1 million deficit the board is facing, Gordon-Hooker says she would consult with other trustees on where money could be saved and consult with parents and the community at large.

“I don't believe parents should be the passive receptors of hard decision-making but that they should be made aware of the challenges and the hard decisions faced by the board,” she says.

Walkley says in his 19 years as trustee, he's never seen the board facing such a large deficit so early in the fiscal year. “My first priority would be to get the deficit under control. When money is tight it needs to be addressed because the way it is now we have no contingency funds to deal with financial problems that will arise.”

Both candidates strongly support the neighbourhood of learning concept that is being proposed as a replacement model for Mount Baker Secondary School. However they differ to a degree on their approach to standardized testing and the controversial FSA (Foundation Skills Assessment) testing program.

Walkley says he sees nothing wrong with testing per se. “Testing has been around forever. It's part of the evaluation that has to be done.” As for the FSA tests, Walkley says he disagrees with the BC Teachers Federation (BCTF) that the tests are too stressful for students and too expensive to administer.

“We're spending $50 million on education in this district and I think there should be some kind of evaluation of what we're doing and some benchmarks.”

However, Walkley says he's against how the Fraser Institute uses the FSA test results “because it pits school against school, teacher against teacher and it just goes on and on.”

Gordon-Hooker says she has no problem with regular classroom testing. “You have to test to find out if students are picking up the knowledge and skills they're there for.” But the FSA “is a whole different issue.” she says.

“It's a very controversial issue and I'd have to do more homework before I could come down with my own opinion and I'd have to discuss it with the board.”

As part of her learning curve for the election, Gordon-Hooker says she's spent much of her time leading up to the election visiting schools and attending trustee and committee meetings. “I've been in the schools, but I've also served on several other community boards.”

She says she has also worked in the schools for several years as a volunteer tutor in the One-to-One Literacy program and says this has given her an insight into how students learn and how the educational system works.

Walkley says in all the years he's been on the board he was always guided by what's best for students. “The students must always come first, but it can be really tough at times when you don't have the money to do what you think is best.”

Sometimes trustees have to choose between such things as a band program or more money for the library. “Then you just have to do what you think is best for students overall,” Walkley says.

Voting is from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Cranbrook residents vote at Amy Woodland Elementary School while Area C voters can also vote at Amy Woodland Elementary as well as the Moyie Community Hall, the Fort Steele Resort, King's Chapel in Wycliffe and the Steeplesview Community Centre in Wardner.