It’ll be up to a new North Vancouver school board to decide how many meetings should take place behind closed doors in the next term.
Trustees voted 4-2 Oct. 16 against a motion put forward by trustee Jessica Stanley at the final public school board meeting of the current term that would have directed the school district to hold most of its meetings in public.
Stanley said she thought the school board has been having too many of its meetings out of the public eye and that practice has contributed to dysfunction on the board.
In particular, Stanley pointed to regular closed-door meetings of trustees and senior staff referred to as “seminars,” where trustees are given information, ask questions and discuss a wide range of topics.
When those meetings happen out of the public eye “you undermine the public trust,” said Stanley. “I do think we’ve gotten ourselves into a practice that is not supportive of good working relationships.”
Stanley said holding too many meetings behind closed doors has contributed to dysfunction on the board, because behaviour of some trustees was worse when they knew the public wasn’t watching.
“I think we have a responsibility to conduct ourselves in public. And we are not doing so,” she said.
Trustee Megan Higgins agreed, saying the behaviour of trustees has improved since the board accepted the recommendation of a Ministry of Education consultant to stop having closed-door “seminars” for the remainder of the term.
Other trustees said they wanted to leave that decision up to the new school board rather than make it for them.
If behaviour is a problem, “we need to address the behaviour instead of tying the hands of the new board,” said Chair Christie Sacré.
Trustee Cyndi Gerlach said that at a recent all-candidates meeting, trustee candidates were asked whether they supported holding the “seminars” in public. “We all answered yes,” she said.
But Gerlach added she thought the new school board should make the decision.
Trustees voted to postpone the decision until the January meeting of the board.
Records obtained by the North Shore News under a Freedom of Information request indicated the board has held between two and five closed-door meetings a month during the past term, in addition to an average of two meetings a month open to the public. Topics covered at the closed-door information sessions in the last school year ranged from livestreaming, new school academies, special needs students, the budget and a discussion on the provincial funding formula, according to information provided by the school district.
