Education Minister George Abbott told reporters on Wednesday in Victoria that he hasn't formed any conclusion on whether teachers should be allowed to be school trustees.
A reporter asked the minister where he stood on an issue that continues to come up in New Westminster, which has three trustees - Michael Ewen, David Phelan and Jonina Campbell - who are also teachers.
"There are many teachers serving as trustees now," Abbott said. "The only limitation around their service is that they cannot serve on a board in the district in which they teach. For example, there's teachers on the New West board who teach in Surrey, and I know there's a number of cases where they cross school district boundaries - that's a question that the B.C. school trustees association themselves have been debating to some extent, and I know others are debating."
Abbott told reporters that at some point, they may take a look at it as well.
"But not yet?" the reporter asked.
"No, I haven't formed any conclusion on that," Abbott said. "There's some really excellent trustees who are teachers, and actually there are many good trustees who are former teachers and former principals, and the like, so I don't think there's an automatic exclusion for them but there are times when it gets really difficult. There's one school district I believe where so many have to recuse themselves from decisions around labour relations that it's tough to get any decision from their board at all."
Abbott said that is one of the challenges of having relatively low participation in school board elections.
