The New Westminster school board is holding its first in-person public meeting in more than two years tonight.
The board's education committee meets Tuesday, June 7 at 3:30 p.m. in the Learning Commons at New Westminster Secondary School.
The agenda includes a presentation from NWSS staff and students, a year-in-review report from the board's Student Voice representatives, and a report on the district's Indigenous education work.
All public board and committee meetings have been held virtually since April 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Tonight's operations committee meeting, at 6:30 p.m., will be held online via Webex.
The board voted in April to keep that meeting structure in place for 2022/23. In the coming school year, all open board meetings will be held virtually on the fourth Tuesday of each month, as they are now.
Education committee meetings will be held in person, rotating through SD40 school sites for five meetings per year. Those meetings will start at 3:30 p.m. to allow staff and students to make presentations to board members.
Just one education committee meeting, in June 2023, will be held virtually. That one will start at 5 p.m.
Operations committee meetings will be held online on the same nights as education meetings; they’ll be scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
The school district opted to keep a hybrid schedule because the level of participation by parents and community members had gone up over the course of the pandemic.
“The public engagement we have seen as a result to pivoting to a virtual mode of communication for both committee and board meetings due to the pandemic has increased dramatically in contrast to our previous in-person meetings,” secretary-treasurer Bettina Ketcham said in an April report to trustees. “The level of engagement by all stakeholder groups is an area the board would like to maintain as we move into the future.”
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, [email protected].
