The North Vancouver school district will be finishing the fall term with an A+ in transparency. The board of trustees voted 6-1 last week to install cameras and microphones in their boardroom so meetings can be live-streamed and posted on the internet for all to see.
Just like our municipal governments have been doing for years.
The issue has been simmering since 2015 when the school board embarrassingly told a parent he had to turn off his video camera or be kicked out of the meeting.
The board seems to have gotten over most of their institutional timidity and they appear to accept now that, as elected trustees, what they do and say in those meetings is in the public interest. And what’s more, they’re taking a major step forward in documenting those meetings for the benefit of parents who, believe it or not, tend to be occupied at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evenings when the board meets. This is the single biggest step they could take to increase engagement with parents.
We’re excited to see the system up and running in late fall or early winter. As it stands today, if you wanted to know what happened at the board table – if not in your North Shore News – you have to wait a month for the hopelessly vague minutes to be adopted at the next meeting. It’s hardly a substitute at a time when our kids are masters of broadcasting with cellphone technology.
As any high school history teacher can tell their students, we are living now in the Information Age. We’re glad to see the school district has caught up.
Now, about West Vancouver’s school board…
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