Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) trustees agree with extending their ability to hold electronic board meetings.
Earlier this month, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) reached out to school board chairs across the province asking them to provide feedback on extending the regulations that allow them to hold electronic board meetings.
The board already voted to resume in-person meetings while keeping the option to hold hybrid virtual meetings in place.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Ontario government passed regulations that would allow school boards to hold meetings virtually, rather than in person. After several extensions, these regulations are set to expire on November 15.
The Ministry of Education is now considering what to do with respect to the regulations, and has asked OPSBA to gather feedback from boards across the province about options.
“I want to acknowledge that we had intended to be in-person last week and again tonight, but the technology did not work when tested. I am definitely hoping that we will be in-person for the meeting on Oct. 17,” said WRDSB chair Scott Piatkowski at the school board meeting, Monday night.
“The reason that we have not resumed in-person meetings is that we have not been able to continue live streaming because the audio was not working. We will return to in-person meetings as soon as the technology allows, and we will continue to live-stream.”
School board Trustee Jayne Herring was in favour of supporting the extension to hold electronic board meetings.
“Our preference is certainly to be in-person, and I do believe that we have the equipment to be hybrid if somebody were ill or unable to attend in-person. But I think I would like some sort of regulatory amendment because we are unsure of what lies ahead with COVID-19. I don’t think any of us do,” said school board trustee, Jayne Herring.
“Should things go off the rails again, then there would at least be an opportunity, for safety reasons, to have that availability on the books.”
Trustee Joanne Weston said that if the board has the capability, she agrees that there needs to be some regulation in terms of how that could work.
“I think hybrid is just now the way that we operate. I think it provides a lot of flexibility for COVID-19 or whatever else is happening such as a school closure, we can continue with our meeting in a virtual format providing us with a lot more flexibility. I would support extending the ability to hold electronic meetings,” Weston said.
Trustee Laurie Tremble also supported the extension for similar reasons, including weather impacts.
“Particularly now, we are seeing more significant, frequent, and severe storms with climate change. This gives us an ability to still meet and carry on business if there are any health or weather impacts,” Tremble said.
Student trustee Kenzy Soror said she echoes the importance of having a virtual option for board and committee meetings, not just in cases of emergency, but also just as a regular option.
“It is not only considerate of the feelings that people do still have regarding the pandemic and COVID-19 safety, but it also is essential for accessibility. I hope that this is considered, and the regulation is extended,” Sorer said.
For trustee, Cindy Watson, virtual meetings help promote transparency, accountability, and accessibility for parents who want to attend school board meetings.
“They are still able to still come as a delegation, they are still able to get their voice out, and they can actually hear what happens at a school board meeting. So, I definitely believe that we should still have virtual meetings,” Watson said.
“This is so we can be accountable and participate with the public.”
Feedback from trustees will be passed on to OPSBA later this week and shared with the ministry.
This story has been edited for clarity since trustees were not voting in support of continuing virtual meetings, but instead gathering feedback for the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association to extend regulations to allow electronic meetings to continue past the Nov. 15 expiry of current regulations.
The board had already voted to resume in-person meetings but wants to retain the option of hosting virtual meetings if necessary.
CambridgeToday regrets any confusion the previous version of this story may have caused.
