Supt. Terry Sullivan caps 40-year career
By MIKE YOUDS
Officially, Terry Sullivan closed the book Monday night on 15 years of leading the Kamloops-Thompson School District. Unofficially, he’ll keep writing reports until the end of the month.
Sullivan, who plans to remain in Kamloops after retiring as superintendent July 31, offered a parting perspective on the continuing labour dispute while highlighting accomplishments with school board and staff since his arrival in School District 73.
Dr. Terry Sullivan.
“You’d like to see it resolved,” he told reporters after the board met. “It’s not the way I’d like to leave. It’s discouraging for everyone.”
Earlier in his 40-year education career, which included serving school districts across Canada as a superintendent and an elected trustee, Sullivan was a union president.
“I know what it’s like to be on that side of the table,” he said. “Hopefully, sometime this month, they’ll all get together and reach an agreement. I just hope it’s not a settlement until next time.”
There have been five such strikes since he arrived from the Maritimes in 1999. Clearly, the relationship between the B.C. Teachers Federation and the government is strained and has to change, he said.
“There’s going to have to be a change in the relationship and the TF is going to have to be a part of that. It’s not working for teachers, it’s not working for government and it’s not working for kids.”
Sullivan told the board earlier that there will be adjustments in September regardless of whether or not a resolution is reached in the meantime. The district is still missing marks from some students and hasn’t been able to hold meetings around grade selection, he noted.
Negotiators met four times last week but could not find common ground.
“To my knowledge, there are no talks planned and the sides are still hundreds of millions of dollars apart.”
The three best mediators in the province —Vince Ready, Mark Brown and Stephen Kelleher —are not involved and that’s not a good sign, he said. The best-case scenario is for a summer resolution.
“The worst-case scenario is that there will be no settlement and we’ll go deep into September with this dispute.”
The outlook didn’t dampen Sullivan’s last meeting with the board. Trustee John Harwood, a retired school principal, called him a “fabulous leader.”
“That rock of foundation that has helped this board become what it’s become,” Harwood said. “No matter what the problem, Dr. Sullivan would always deal with it in a respectful and meaningful way. You don’t get much of that in today’s society.”
Sullivan gave much of the credit to other administrators — Ross Dickson for the schools of choice program, and Ross Spina and Greg Howard for the NorKam Trades Centre, to name a few examples.
Accomplishments in the past year alone were considerable, he said, listing as examples changes in the school calendar, construction of the trades centre and the Day of Sucwentwecw, an inaugural day for honouring Aboriginal peoples. At Monday’s meeting, the board voted to make the day an annual event after hearing a glowing report from district principal Cheryl Sebastian.
Sebastian said one local First Nations chief told her that it meant more to him than the Canadian government’s apology for residential schools.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I wish Mr. Sullivan well as he enters the next chapter in his life. May he have time to enjoy other things in life and thank you for the years of service to the Kamloops school district.
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