Poor Grades for SD52 Board, Administration on themes of communication

A snap shot of the last SD52 Board meeting made available
on their archive page, that from December

If the members of the SD52 Board and its administrators were taking a Communications course at Charles Hays, the report card might say: tardy when it comes to homework, projects and communication in class, improvement needed.

For parents and those with an interest in Education in the region, keeping up with what's happening at the School Board level is a bit frustrating of late, with a flow of information that could use some improvement.

While School websites keep the parents somewhat up to date on the happenings at the neighbourhood school, the SD52 website is a bit of frozen in time service, with few updates on themes arriving so far this new school year and more importantly the record of note of the January School Board meeting still non existent coming up on ten days after the session took place.

The Board meeting of January  18th seemingly a bit of a controversial one, as observed from notes for the weekly paper that indicated that the Board may be split on a talking point from the BCTF. 

With the night featuring some discussion on whether to change policy to allow for a designated Indigenous trustee position on the Board, as an addition to the elected Board.

The topic which apparently has been tabled for the moment, is an important one that parents and voters should know more about. 

And the best way for that to happen is to have an archived version of the Board Meeting available for review, so everyone gain more background towards the topic and hear how each Trustee has spoken to it.

After some progress in providing for more accountability on Board sessions, with the introduction of an archive, suddenly it's a step backwards with the January recording still drifting along in the digital universe still awaiting a placement in the SD52 archive.

While ensuring that the record of their sessions is available for the public to review, the District may actually want to look at changing how they streamcast their sessions, which have been held by way of mostly remote participation this year.

The process currently is one which requires that those with an interest in following the Board of Education's proceedings to seek out a Zoom Link to join in, something that may be limiting towards an audience for their work.

The School District may want to follow the lead down the road in Smithers, where the Town Council sessions are streamed live by way of their Facebook feed, available to anyone that happens to click in at the time.

That would give the SD52 Facebook page, some additional content and perhaps even the opportunity to increase the transparency on the Board's work and create larger interest in what they do. It would also serve as another archive of their work for reference.

With the District about to head into their Budget Consultation process at the end of this month, making those sessions available to as wide an audience as possible may help to give them a wider involvement in the information sharing process.

The District could also make better use of their website to expand on some of the themes noted during the SD52 Board meetings that they have provided video for, to give more background towards many of the topics they address.

Expanding on both their video presentation, along with the sharing of information through a full range of options may help to get important themes out for parents and those following education in the community, not to mention pick up their grade in communication.

For more notes on Education in the Northwest see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.