BIOGRAPHY
Georgina is a middle school teacher in Seine River. For the past twenty six years, she has had the pleasure of teaching both single grade classes and multi-grade classes in the English and French Immersion streams.
Georgina has been actively involved in The Manitoba Teachers’ Society since the signing of her first teaching contract. She first served as a Seine River Teachers’ Association Council Representative, then the Professional Development Chair, Bargaining Chair, Education Finance Chair, and Vice-President. While serving as Collective Bargaining Chair, her team successfully negotiated: equitable prep time for members, increased leave clauses, a harassment clause, improved clauses for substitute teachers and an association managed PD fund. The team also negotiated the first ever Manitoba clause for teacher evaluation – the right to a fair and reasonable evaluation.
As association president (2006-2009), Georgina and the SRTA Executive successfully implemented two health plans (extended health and dental) and raised the profile of SRTA members.
This year she took on the responsibility of managing the SRTA Professional Development Fund and is serving as a table team member for the next round of collective bargaining.
Prior to being elected to the Provincial Executive, she served as member at large on the Professional Development Standing Committee. In her role on Provincial Executive, she has served as:
- a member of the 2009 MTS Conference Planning Committee (2007-2009),
- Co-chair of the MTS Taskforce on Teacher Workload (2008-2010),
- Chair of the Workplace Safety and Health Standing Committee (2009-2010),
- a member of the Pension Taskforce (2009-2010), and
- a member of the MTS Negotiating Committee (2008-2010).
Raised in Southern Manitoba, Georgina graduated from Morden Collegiate and then attended the University of Manitoba (B. Ed., pre-Masters’ in Science, Post-Baccalaureate in Special Education). While working on her Post-Baccalaureate, she began to change the delivery of programming to her students in order to provide the most appropriate education.
Georgina and her husband Marcel, live in rural Manitoba, just outside of Niverville. As a business partner in their family farm, she learned, firsthand, the reality of running a profitable business and making the best financial decisions. She and Marcel are the proud parents of three adult children. In her spare time, she likes to cycle, garden and tackle home renovation projects.
Georgina looks forward to serving the teachers of Manitoba for another term.
ELECTION STATEMENT
We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
When I first ran two years ago, I promised to work hard for the teachers of this province.
I have upheld that commitment. As Co-chair of the MTS Taskforce on Teacher Workload, I have tirelessly cris-crossed the province in the last two years, speaking with teachers and listening to their stories. While authoring the Taskforce Report this year officially concluded the taskforce, our work enacting the recommendations has just begun. We must change the untenable working conditions within our schools. We must ensure that our employers accept their responsibility in providing a physically and emotionally safe work environment and we must lobby for increased contributions to help secure teachers’ pensions.
I am passionate about the profession and want to maintain the trust that teachers have placed in us. As a member of the provincial executive, I am part of the political voice that empowers teachers. I value differences in opinion, challenging the status quo, but always keeping in mind that whatever decisions are made, must be good for Manitoba’s teachers.
I firmly believe that The Society is going to be called upon to defend and advocate for teachers like never before, and I am prepared to be part of that team. We are all MTS, a collective of teachers, and we are stronger working together.
I look forward to representing you on this executive for another term.
