Two parents coming out of last week’s SOGI meeting “feeling disappointed” announced Saturday they will run for school trustee in October’s election.
“I’m very disappointed with the SOGI policy implemented by our district...no trustees other than Ho were willing to amend the policy to relieve parents’ concerns,” wrote Ivan Pak in his announcement.
Pak told the Richmond News that he thinks the large division among people on the issue shows “trustees haven’t done enough work."
“A trustee said many parents have received misinformation, but what was the trustee’s solution to that? I think this is the school board’s responsibility to ensure that parents were informed,” said Pak.
He added that although the school board had hosted numerous consultation sessions on the policy since it was introduced, he questions their efficiency, claiming “many parents were not involved in them.”
“If I’m elected as trustee, I will reach out to parents to answer their questions and address their concerns, instead of waiting for them to reach out to me, maybe through the parent advisory council of each school,” he said.
“And I will emphasize parents’ voices, compared to others in the public, since we are the stakeholders, and it’s our kids. We should have a right to say what we want or don’t want for our kids.”
Pak said language challenges also need to be addressed more by the school board to eliminate unnecessary misunderstandings.
“We have a large Chinese population in Richmond, and many parents are new here without perfect English,” he said.
Pak added, that while “the original SOGI policy draft had both English and Chinese, but no Chinese version for the final draft. I think the school board can do better than that.”
Pak said people, such as himself, who are “fluent in both languages and understand different cultures” can be a bridge, giving “Chinese parents a voice and conveying mainstream values to them at the same time.”
Pak is originally from Shanghai, China, and has lived in Hong Kong and graduated from the University of Warwick in the UK. He now runs an IT company in Richmond.
James Li, another trustee candidate and a Richmond vacation consultant, said he’s not ready to speak to the media.
