A Nanaimo school trustee is disappointed the board wouldn’t support her motion regarding trustee candidates and criminal record checks, but is glad trustees will discuss the issue again next month.
Donna Allen nearly didn’t take her seat after being elected for a third term last November because she wanted to campaign for legislative changes requiring all trustee candidates to undergo criminal record checks and disclose the results to voters, which is not required under current legislation.
She initially said she couldn’t take her seat because fellow trustee Bill Bard has a criminal record and she was worried pursuing the issue while sitting as a trustee would cause a distraction.
Trustees debated a motion she put forward at last week’s business committee meeting intended to go to the B.C. School Trustees Association’s February provincial council meeting.
The motion asks the BCSTA to urge the province to amend legislation to require school trustee candidates to submit a criminal record check with nomination papers, which the school district would make available to the public.
Allen’s motion failed 6-2, with only Allen and trustee Kim Howland in support. Trustee Sharon Welch was absent.
Jamie Brennan, school board chairman, put forward an alternative motion to be discussed at next month’s business committee meeting. That motion asks for criminal record checks when a trustee is elected, with the results disclosed to the school board and senior staff, but not the public.
Allen said she’s happy the issue will be discussed again, albeit through a different motion.
“It would still open the conversation about criminal record checks,” she said. “At least it hasn’t been shut down.”
Brennan said the majority of the board found Allen’s motion problematic because it would make public an individual’s private information.
If a check were done when trustees are elected, then the board could restrict a trustee’s access to schools if something problematic were found, he said.
“It’s not our responsibility to examine the lives of candidates,” said Brennan. “The position of the other six was simply, ‘No, we’re not going to go there.'”
Candidate eligibility requirements are already outlined in the School Act, he added, and if people want change, they should lobby the province, not school trustees.
Legislation states that a person is only restricted from running for office or holding office if they are serving time in jail for an indictable offence.
Bard said criminal background information is already available – people can go to the courthouse and look up candidates.
“I don’t think we have any right to be publishing that information,” he said. “We all agreed that something needed to be done, but there were privacy issues and legal issues that need to be considered.”
