An email exchange between a parent and a man running for a trustee position with the Foothills School Division recently made waves on social media.

Cassandra Pelley, an Okotokian whose son will be entering school under the next term for the Foothills School Division's Board of trustees, has been reaching out to local nominees with a few questions.

Among her concerns are the controversial draft curriculum, GSA's, and Truth and Reconciliation.

One rather blunt response from candidate Glenn Stieben stood out to her:

'Are you a teacher? If so, go away.'

For Pelley, that was all the information she needed, but some friends of hers encouraged her to share the response.

She took a screenshot and posted it to the Facebook group "Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft," where it received over 1,2000 'reacts' and 400 comments and was reposted to several other local groups.

Pelley's post was screenshotted and reposted in several other local Facebook groups.

Reactions ranged from incredulity to outrage.

Pelley wasn't expecting it to take off in the way it did.

"I was pretty taken aback... I honestly expected a mixed response and I was surprised at the number of people who were as shocked as I was to see that kind of response from someone running for trustee. It got a lot of conversations going."

According to Stieben, he's received several similar emails from teachers and had started sending that response by default.

"I got clobbered with so many that I just didn't want to waste my time answering them. I don't need their vote. Teachers vote for teachers, so there's no way I'm going to get in, it's a school board, but at least I gave them some competition."

Stieben's motivation for his council run was born largely out of his opposition to Alberta teachers and his frustration that all five of the ward's sitting trustees are former teachers.

According to Stieben, his goal would be to represent parents and students as a trustee, and that teachers have enough 'protection' from the Alberta Teachers' Association.

Among his qualms are the maximum 90 days of sick leave allotted to teachers after one year of service, teaching staff at local schools not having to pay for parking, full-time kindergarten costing families $250 a month, and his claim that each Alberta teacher costs $125,000 a year (a number he calculated himself).

Stieben also relayed several personal anecdotes and experiences that led to his disdain for Alberta teachers.

He says he's preparing an information package to submit to the RCMP, and he believes they will pursue racketeering charges.

"Let me tell you, it took me a long time to dig this all up. They're a very powerful force, there's no doubt about it. I think the only way I can take this on is to hand it into the RCMP."

With that being the case, Stieben was actually pleased with the social media response.

"It worked out better than I thought! It's gold, I thought it'd take two or three weeks to get at this. it took one day, it was enough, I have the right, I don't want to waste my time with these teachers, they have nothing to say to me."

Pelley takes it as a reminder of why it's important to do some research on local candidates.

"Reach out to people that are running, see where they stand on issues that are important to you. Take a look at their profiles they submitted because, to be honest, his bullet points there, some of them are just not correct and not in the scope of what the job would be. That's a little bit frustrating from my standpoint."

 

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