Rhonda Boucher makes Quebec history with 

new electoral process for school boards

The president of the English Parents’ Committee Association (EPCA), Rhonda Boucher, made history in February by being elected as the new Vice-Chair of the Council of Commissioners for the Western Québec School Board (WQSB). 

In Quebec, this is the first time that a Commissioner representing Parents was elected as Vice-Chair of a School Council of Commissioners since the adoption of Bill 105 in 2016. 

Bill 105 amended the Education Act. It “granted commissioners representing parents’ committees the right to vote at meetings of the council of commissioners and allowed them to be appointed to the office of school board vice-chair.” It introduced certain measures to make sure school, vocational training centre and adult education centre principals participated in certain school board decisions concerning the allocation of school board resources. Since then, the Ministry of Education is given the power to issue directives to school boards. 

The Aylmerite Rhonda Boucher has been involved at the school level for 12 years. She was Governing Board Chair at Poltimore Elementary School for 10 years as well as sitting on the WQSB’s Parents’ Committee for 8 years. Ms Boucher has been Chair of the WQSB’s Parents’ Committee for the past four years. She was also Chair of the Special Education Advisory Committee for two years and has been a Parent Commissioner for Elementary and Secondary. 

The English Parents’ Committee Association (EPCA), a non-profit provincial corporation funded by the Ministère de l’Éducation et de l’Enseignement supérieur (MEES), represents the Parents’ Committees of Quebec’s English School Boards. It is made up of 16 members. There are approximately 100,000 students in the English language youth sector, according to EPCA. As other organizations, the EPCA is advocating for the maintenance of School Boards across the province.