North Van trustees pledge to end ‘dysfunctional’ behaviour
School trustees in North Vancouver have promised to play nice with each other following a damning consultant’s report that investigated claims of bullying, sexual harassment and absenteeism among the seven-member board.
In February, the provincial education ministry asked consultant Lee Southern to look into the claims and he concluded in his recently released report that “dysfunctional interpersonal trustee relations negatively impact the board’s performance of its government duties.”
The issues documented in the Southern report read like tales of schoolyard bullies and truants skipping class. They include bullying behaviour toward staff and trustees by an unnamed person, making some people hesitant to attend private board meetings “over concern(s) about personal attacks.”
Southern also referenced a North Shore News story in which fourterm trustee Susan Skinner alleged she had experienced “workplace sexual harassment and bullying.” She did not respond to email or phone requests for an interview with Postmedia.
Skinner, who was granted a threemonth leave in 2016, missed all but one public board meeting during the 2016-17 school year, according to minutes posted on the district’s website. She has attended the 2017-18 meetings by teleconference only.
Board chair Christie Sacré, who Southern singled out as competent and respected, said the six recommendations in the Southern report are being addressed, including reinforcing the trustees’ “personal responsibilities” to improve working relations.
“Lee Southern and I have met with each of the trustees and had conversations post-report, just to basically get confirmation that everyone was on board with positive momentum until the end of the term. And we received that,” she said Tuesday.
The board has always been able to fulfil its duties, she insisted, although at times it took longer to get things done when there were differences of opinion.
“(But) we are not alone in some of the learning curves that have happened across the province this term,” said Sacré, a trustee since 2011. “There has been a lot of upheaval.”
Recent challenges faced by school boards include a teachers’ strike that ended shortly before the last election, a teacher shortage created by a court ruling that demanded thousands of new hires and the election of a new provincial government.
Gordon Swan, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, is not aware of other boards with
similar problems to North Vancouver, but said any board — whether of a major corporation or a smaller elected group — will have its “ups and downs.” The report by Southern, a former executive director of the trustees’ association, provided recommendations that will get North Vancouver “back on track,” he added.
His organization has drafted an extensive new handbook for trustees, in part because of an anticipated increase in newly elected representatives in 2018, as many current trustees are not running for re-election.
“We’ve created, particularly with elections coming up, a brand-new trustee learning guide and there’s a whole section on corporate governance because we know probably between 30 and 40 per cent ... will be new trustees this year,” said Swan, a veteran trustee with the Nicola-Similkameen school district and a former vice-chair of the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association board.
“We want to make sure all trustees start off on the right foot.”
The handbook addresses everything from human resources to budgets to “working effectively” with other board members.