School boards and in-camera meetings

The SD57 school board may be interested in the following article from the North Shore News:

http://www.nsnews.com/news/north-vancouver-school-trustees-to-halt-closed-door-meetings-1.23189384

A consultant hired by the Ministry of Education to examine allegations of unprofessional conduct, bullying and harassment among members of the North Vancouver School board has recommended that the school board stop holding meetings behind closed doors and offer professional mediation to deal with harassment allegations.

Usually, local governments are only supposed to hold meetings closed to the public to discuss legal, land and personnel issues.

But some local councils and school boards in B.C. stretch the definitions of when closed-door meetings are appropriate, said Dermod Travis, executive director of the watchdog group Integrity B.C. “Some small communities in B.C. have more in-camera meetings than the City of Toronto does,” he said.

In the case of the North Vancouver School District, trustees have met in-camera on a semi-regular basis to discuss issues that would later come up for decisions at the board table.

 

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