It’ll be a travelling roadshow like no other.
Come September, school board committee meetings will be held at schools instead of at the district office. The change is one of two recommendations the district parent advisory council (DPAC) made to the board recently to improve communication between parents and trustees.
The recommendations came out of a discussion DPAC had with school board chair Kelly Slade-Kerr, according to Karon Trenaman, chair of the parents’ group.
Slade-Kerr told parents at a DPAC meeting last fall the school board was looking to increase engagement with parents, including having more parents attend school board and committee meetings.
“My comment back was, ‘Well, we’re all volunteers, and we have very busy lives and you’re asking us then to go do more volunteer work,’” Trenaman said, adding parents often attend meetings when they have a concern or petition to present to trustees.
While she sees the value in parents attending the school board meetings and staying more engaged, asking busy parents to volunteer more time to attend the meetings wasn’t a feasible idea, she said.
So DPAC came up with two alternatives. First, the school district should reactivate its Facebook page, and second, have the schools’ parent advisory councils (PAC) host the school board’s monthly education policy and planning committee meetings.
The school board will begin implementing the recommendations this fall.
