The Kamloops-Thompson School District’s Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) isn’t too pleased after a meeting with the Ministry of Education’s capital management branch last week.

DPAC Chair, Chris Ponti, says while their goal was to discuss the district’s overcrowded schools and ask what they could do as parents, the meeting didn’t exactly go according to plan.

“We wanted to let [the ministry] know what was happening in our district from a parent, a student, and community point of view,” Ponti said on NL Newsday.

“We weren’t even given a chance to ask that and we were told immediately that they were only there as a favour to the district and they were not going to answer any of our questions. That was the start of the meeting. It just completely derailed from there.”

Ponti says the SD73 DPAC has been wanting to meet with Minister Jennifer Whiteside for some time, noting they’re disappointed that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, they met with an Assistant Deputy Minister via Teams.

“This was just one member of the Ministry of Education, and this is someone who normally deals with operational staff and might not have been a good person to have a meeting with, but that is who we were offered,” Ponti said.

“We are going to keep pushing. I mean there is no way that the government should not listen to the stakeholders and the constituents.”

Also present at this meeting with City Councillor Dale Bass, who echoed Ponti’s comments on twitter.

“It was not a good meeting,” she said. “It started out poorly when the ADM said he was only meeting as a courtesy. It was obvious he had not considered questions sent before the meeting.”

“It was shocking how dismissive and condescending he was,” Bonnie McBride added on twitter.

“Even when the BC Government staff don’t have many answers they are usually thankful for volunteers taking time to meet with them to share concerns. This staffer didn’t even read our agenda or know anything about our district.”

SD73’s top capital priorities include three elementary schools, a new Aberdeen Secondary School, and a new school in Sun Peaks.

“The focus for this meeting was to give them an idea of what we’re feeling, what we are seeing, what we are experiencing, and to say that we want to be part of the solution,” Ponti said.

“At this meeting, I said ‘we see this as a roundtable with us having a seat and we want to work together to solve a problem because we can be stronger together’. He basically said, ‘no there is a process to follow and you can’t speak with us.'”

The Ministry of Education declined to comment about the issues raised when reached by NL News.