The New Westminster board of education voted down a proposal at a contentious meeting Tuesday night to bring in a consultant to help complete the ongoing plan to define the district's direction and goals.
Voice New Westminster trustees - Casey Cook, MaryAnn Mortensen and Lisa Graham - voted in favour of having an outsider come in to facilitate the final stages of implementing what they believe is a long-overdue document that would guide the district in a principled way.
But their hopes were squashed when trustees Jonina Campbell, James Janzen and David Phelan (trustee Michael Ewen abstained) voted against ordering staff to bring in a consultant to finish the plan.
"This is really frustrating," Cook said. "The fact is we are close, and I think we need somebody to come in and just drive the whip. ... We are going into an incredibly difficult budget period; I think we need a strategic plan in place.
"The biggest thing to me about a strategic plan, you can have all kinds of diversity and different opinions in the room, but once you decide on a plan those are your instructions to staff. ... The longer we operate without this, the more uncertainty there is for staff."
While trustees are divided on whether the district needs a facilitator to finish up the process, trustees seem to agree on the need for strategic plan.
The divisions on the board between the Voice New Westminster trustees and labour-endorsed trustees - Janzen, Campbell, Phelan and Janzen - could be felt Tuesday night when trustees took occasional verbal swipes at one another during the discussion on the strategic plan.
"People would rather make a long-winded orations rather than just actually just move an amendment - that's their privilege I guess," Janzen said in response to the lengthy banter on the topic.
Janzen questioned the issue given that the motion allowed staff to hire a facilitator if they deem it necessary.
But Cook countered, saying senior administrators "read the room."
"Staff understand there is a division here; so frankly, staff is presenting options," Cook said.
Having an outsider is a better option because they don't have "ongoing relationships" with trustees and staff, Cook said.
"In my conversations with staff, staff have supported it and have publicly stated it," Cook said.
"I have absolutely no idea what that just meant," Janzen said in response to Cook's comments. "Let's defeat this motion and move onto the next one. This is embarrassing ... It seems to have really gone off the rails here."
The district is slated to finish up the consultation process with various stakeholder groups by the end of February, according to superintendent John Woudzia.
To view the district's draft strategic plan, go to its website and look under Current Information on the bottom right side of the page.
