New Westminster school trustees are looking into ways they can meet in person but still allow parents to participate remotely.
A discussion around a return to in-person school board meetings hit the agenda at the final School District 40 board meeting of 2022, held via Zoom on Tuesday night (Dec. 13).
The board first adopted an all-virtual schedule with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with all board and committee meetings being held virtually for two years. This past April, the board decided — after much debate — to switch to a hybrid schedule for the 2022/23 school year, with education committee meetings taking place in person but both operations committee and full board meetings being held online.
Trustee Dee Beattie brought forward a motion to Tuesday's meeting suggesting the board return to meeting in-person for either the operations committee or full board meetings, or both.
"In-person meetings are better for building understanding of issues, better communication, better focus and better participation," she said in a background report to trustees. "When interpreting information, non-verbal cues are a big part of any conversation. Complex strategic conversations need full attention, and through face-to-face discussions we are able to debate creatively to fully understand the issue."
The motion came on the heels of a contentious board meeting on Nov. 22, when parents attending the meeting online voiced strong opposition to a plan to relocate child-care centres from École Qayqayt Elementary School and Fraser River Middle School — and strong criticism for the board's handling of the issue.
Parents who attended Tuesday's meeting pushed back hard against the idea of losing virtual participation options.
Laura Kwong with the district parent advisory council (DPAC) said the idea of returning to in-person-only meetings was troubling, given that the pandemic had showed remote meetings had significantly lowered barriers to participation by parents.
She suggested offering some form of hybrid model — an idea echoed by Doug Herasymuik of the F.W. Howay Elementary School PAC, who reiterated that having virtual options has made it far more possible for parents to take part in meetings.
“I think the biggest lesson is we shouldn’t be seeking to increase barriers to participation," he said.
Parent James Plett pointed out virtual meeting options that made sense because of the COVID-19 pandemic still continue to make sense.
"We have soaring rates of RSV, cold, flu — I cannot absolutely see the reasoning to going in-person only," he said.
"I also think that given the heat the board has caught in recent months with what has been universally described as a daycare crisis, moving to in-person only would make it look like this board is attempting to hide from public scrutiny rather than engage, collaborate and consult with the public."
Trustees noted advantages to meeting in person, particularly for the new members of the board, but agreed they didn't want to lose out on public engagement.
“As a new trustee, I find that I retain information better in person and I’m able to focus more and engage in more of a meaningful dialogue," trustee Elliott Slinn said. "But I don’t want that at the sacrifice of engagement from stakeholders and community members.”
The idea of hybrid meetings — where trustees could meet in person, with a livestream or other virtual option that would allow some form of remote public participation — found general agreement from the board.
But, after some discussion of what exactly that virtual option would look like and how district technology could accommodate a hybrid format, trustees agreed to table the proposal until January's board meeting.
District staff will bring back a report for the Jan. 31 meeting, which will be held virtually, to provide options for hybrid meetings moving forward in 2023.
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