From your Trustee: (under censure) Al Gribbin
Any opinions in the following article are mine and not those of the Kootenay Lake School Board.
I have had a draft of this article sitting on my computer for some time now, so I had better let my constituents know what I have been up to lately. For me, like many of my former students, homework often gets pushed aside until there is a deadline.
When I ran for the position of your school trustee, I made the commitment that I would strive to make decision making more transparent. A complaint that was commonly being expressed to me was that decisions were being made behind closed doors, in closed meetings, and without the opportunity for public input or scrutiny.
Since becoming a trustee, I have seen numerous topics placed on the agenda for closed meetings that I believe should have been public. The problem appears that the policy that our school board follows is open to such a wide range of interpretation that almost any board decision can be made outside of public scrutiny. Don’t get me wrong, there are situations and discussions that must be held in closed meetings but these situations must follow precisely spelled out rules.
As a trustee who believes in open government, I have challenged a number of topics that have been slated for closed meetings. Many of my challenges to bring topics from closed to open meetings have been overruled.
In my research, I found that local governments — such as our regional district and municipal governments — have very strict rules regarding topics that can be held in a closed meeting. These rules are spelled out in the British Columbia Community Charter Act which is a BC law or statute. I don’t yet know why school districts aren’t obligated to follow this law but I have presented a proposal to change the school district policy to be more in line with this Charter.
I am hopeful that the board will adopt many of these changes, but there does seem to be a reluctance to accept the need to publicly express the reasons that a topic is to be included in a closed meeting, a requirement that our local governments are required to follow under the Community Charter.
If this policy change comes to a vote by our board, I will probably support the motion with the goal of bringing forth further change after a new board is elected in 2022.
There is another policy that I have proposed to the board. Of course, if this proposal goes to the policy and governance committee for discussion, I would be prohibited from participating in
any discussion since I am currently under censure by this board. That may not happen anyway because my policy suggestion has been moved to the closed meeting agenda muzzling me from discussing it publically.
I believe that all levels of government have a duty to be as transparent as possible and not make decisions behind the veil of darkness. In my view, it is never appropriate to make decisions in secret in order to prevent embarrassment or cover up poor decision making. There is nothing in the current policy of SD#8 to stop this from happening.
