Western School Division will be looking to fill a seat on its board of trustees with the departure of David Guenther.
Guenther recently tendered his resignation from the school board as a result of his wife having an employment opportunity in Tennessee.
“This is coming about a year or two years before we had planned to move away,” he noted. “We decided it was time for a family adventure.”
It will almost be unusual to not have a member of the Guenther family at the board table, as his father Kurt served as a trustee for 23 years.
“My father set that example before me … and I always liked that he was involved in the community,” said Guenther, who was first elected in 2018.
He was also drawn to serving on the school board for another personal reason.
“Going through the education system myself, I needed a few supports to help me be successful, and so this was kind of my way to repay that debt,” he said. “I wanted to make sure other kids had those same supports.”
Guenther has some mixed feelings about leaving his role behind mid-term.
“I had hoped to have a little bit more closure with finishing up my second term as a school trustee and seeing the new school complete. I felt there were still some things kind of undone, but the opportunity came,” he said. “I’m so proud of the opportunity that Morden gave me and that they gave me their confidence to be their voice at the board table.”
Aside from having Morden’s new K-8 school become a reality, Guenther also cited another highlight as being how the community came together to oppose the provincial Bill 64 to reform the education system.
“The community told the government we are happy to have the local decision making body here in our local community for our schools and not having those decisions made somewhere else,” he said. “The community really stepped up.”
He as well especially appreciated being involved in the board planning sessions.
“We set the four or five priorities that the school division is really going to focus on, and that trickles right down to the staff and the students knowing what those priorities are,” Guenther said. “That’s where my voice was well heard and I was able to bring ideas to the table.”
Guenther sees the division as being in a great place right now to keep moving forward.
“We have a fantastic senior administration in place. We also have a really strong board right now with four members who are really dedicated to being there and seeing good decisions are made.”
Plans for a by-election to fill the vacant board seat are not yet in place.
“Hopefully somebody in the community wants to step up and be a trustee,” Guenther said. “I want anyone reading this to think about themselves in that kind of role.”
