Congratulations to the new and continuing Trustees of the North Vancouver School Board. I’d like especially to congratulate Barry Forward as he steps into the role of Board Chair.

At the Board’s Inaugural Meeting, they really stepped up to the plate with regards to transparency.

The Board adopted a reasonable yet cautious approach to video recording of Board Meetings. According to the new rules, which are in effect until a Policy Review Committee has a chance to create a full policy, video recording is allowed at School Board Meetings with prior approval of the new Board Chair and with certain restrictions.

Although Trustees Stratton, Sacre and Gerlach all voted against the amended motion, all three stated they were in favour of video recording but simply wanted to give the Policy Review Committee an opportunity to create proper policy around the issue. Stratton stated that some other school districts allow video recording but they have no policy, or minimal policy, addressing the issue. Sacre has reservations about the unknown and what will happen with the videos after they leave the school board meeting. For my part, I’ll be posting any videos I make available in full and in parts on my website.

I’d especially like to thank Trustees Forward, Higgins, Stanley and Skinner, all of whom demonstrated strong support for Board transparency and the desire to move forward with allowing video recording with prior consent of the chair, while waiting for the Policy Review Committee to do its work.

I’m excited and happy with the direction the new Board has chosen to take on this Inaugural Meeting of their four year term.