The board of education unanimously passed a motion to curtail the relentless number of requests New Westminster school district senior administrators get on an "almost-daily basis" from parents on the district parent advisory council.
The board recently passed a motion that if a parent makes a request on behalf of their school's parent council, they have to have the endorsement of their parent council by a vote before senior administrators will respond to the request.
"People individually have rights, always, to contact the school board and to ask for information - all we are saying is if the PACs and the DPACs want information, it should be coordinated by a motion of the PAC," trustee Casey Cook said. "We start getting staff spending huge amounts of time for requests from members of individual PACS or DPACs; it's simply not cost-effective management."
The district is dealing with a significant budget crunch and staffing cutbacks this year.
"We have gone from six senior staff to five senior staff. We are looking at a very significant challenge in terms of our deficit," Cook said. "We get various requests - sometimes there are two or three requests coming in from the same, but different aspects of the same, issue."
Board chair Michael Ewen agreed, saying, "The motion was around DPAC and PACs communicating with our senior admin, and the question was when are people acting on behalf of DPAC and when are people acting on behalf of themselves, and there seems to be some blurring of the lines."
Neither Ewen or Cook would say who the individuals are, however district parent council members Paul Johansen and Wendy Harris have been active critics of the school district at board meetings and in the press.
"Our staff is getting almost-daily contact from DPAC requesting information, requesting items . some of it's informational, some of its advocacy around issues," Ewen said. "I'm still not clear whether the advocacy is their own individual initiative."
Johansen, who has been a school district critic for several years, regularly calls the district, Ewen said.
"We need to know who he's representing," he said. "If he is going to advocate on behalf of somebody, is that a legitimate advocacy, which includes the individuals involved, or is it they have a personnel issue that they would like to deal with and see this as an opportunity to do that."
Recently, Johansen, along with his fellow F. W. Howay parents, have started a petition to stop the transfer of their principal, who is slated to move to Lord Kelvin Elementary in August.
Harris, the district parent council chair, is concerned about the impact the motion will have on parents' ability and right to access information about public education.
"My reaction is that I'm very sad and frustrated. DPAC, we have been called in the press, that we're negative, antagonistic, that we don't want to participate, etc., that we are political . and now it appears we've asked too many questions in the past month," she said.
Harris has been asking for information about Section 177 of the School Act, a law that allow principals to bar parents from schools.
"I asked for policy and procedures on Section 177, because a parent has been served a Section 177 in the district, and I wanted to find out information in our own district what are polices and procedures in the district - in order to take that information to the DPAC meeting."
Harris questioned how she could explain policies to the district parent council members when she isn't informed.
"I asked for a meeting in order to talk about emergency planning, some strategies to increase parent engagement and about principal transfers . and the meetings were denied," she said.
Under the new policy, Harris would have to have the endorsement of her parent council to make the request for information on its behalf.
"Parents are the largest education partners in the district," said Harris, who is also on the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils board of directors.
Johansen was also upset with the board's motion to curtail requests from parents.
"I think that a (trustee who has served 30 years) has created a lot of problems in our district with lay-offs and finances, and it's putting kids in harm's way," Johansen said, referring to Ewen, who's been a school trustee in the city for more than 30 years. "We're fielding questions from our members, and, in our capacity, we relay those questions to the board."
Johansen said he understands the district is down in staff, but there are real concerns for education and requests are coming from a number of parents.
"It's overwhelming them, but they created this mess, and parents need answers," Johansen said.
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