New West Schools operations, board meetings to go hybrid by April

It’s been a point of conversation for a while, but New West Schools will see meetings move into a hybrid format in the coming months.

The discussion stems from two motions that were tabled after meetings in December: had they passed, both the operations policy and planning committee meetings, and the board of education meetings would go to an in-person format.

However, after feedback from a number of parents and local groups—like the New West District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC)—the board asked staff to take a look at certain factors, like the costs of upgrading equipment.

The operations policy and planning committee will begin the hybrid option in April, with meetings to start at 6pm—this was later amended to 6:30pm after discussion. Typically, those meetings start in the 3pm hour, and are usually held on certain Tuesdays of the month.

Regular board meetings, which usually happen on the last Tuesday of each month, will also move to the hybrid format in April, unless the proper equipment can be acquired before then.

A $20,000 price tag

To start, Supt. Karim Hachlaf said he and staff took a look at other school districts, including Vancouver—currently the only school district offering a hybrid meeting format—as well as Delta, Surrey, and Burnaby, to name a few.

One of the bigger hurdles for New West, according to Hachlaf, was the kind of technology it had available to it. He added the board was looking for technology that would allow for more interactive participation, not something static.

“Staff have informed me that our current standalone video camera does not have this capacity. Our goal for anyone viewing the meeting remotely would be able to see the board on the stream conducting its business,” explained Hachlaf.

“An initial estimate to implement the required video equipment and infrastructure will come at a cost of up to $20,000,” the report reads. “The video equipment will allow for video footage of our board table, which will be livestreamed to our public who wish to view meetings remotely, live or at a later date.”

Jawad Razzaq, the district’s technology and information services lead, said there were a few issues with the current set-up, which Razzaq characterized as a quick and “quite frankly, unprofessional” solution, because the set-up was a camera hooked up to a laptop.

“It kinda worked at that time, but it’s not exactly purpose-built. It’s very narrow in its capabilities, and every time there’s a meeting, there’s a lot of prep work that’s required to make sure that it’s working,” he explained.

Razzaq said the school board would need something “seamless” that could pick up the board. Chair Gurveen Dhaliwal noted that there were only 15 meetings a year and that the board likely wasn’t looking for something “snazzy.”

“From where I’m sitting, you take a camera, you plug in the USB, you take a mic, you plug in the USB, you enter Zoom, you select your output, whatever it might be. And so for me, I’d like to better understand how we can use our current equipment for YouTube but why it’s insufficient for other platforms such as Zoom,” said Dhaliwal, who further clarified to ask where microphones were currently connected, or if the school board had a centralized audio/visual system.

“The current microphone system is not connected to a mixer, if you will, it’s not connected to a centralized feed, and because of that when we capture the video and the audio, they’re captured separately,” said Razzaq, using the words “rickety” and “makeshift” to describe the current set-up.

There were questions from other trustees, with Dee Beattie adding money was also spent on the current set-up. As was the case with the previous meeting, Beattie said it was important for trustees to be able to read the room when discussing decisions.

“[To] read the body language, have the eye contact with the presentation, we’ve got a lot of big reports coming up, really crucial for us to understand the reports and dig into some of the nuances that we don’t capture when we’re meeting online,” explained Beattie.

“I’m in favour as well of trying to use the technology that we have, I think it’s really important. We’ve heard from enough people in the community … I can speak to that as well, as a parent, I was never able to attend a school board meeting … I think this has been a positive thing that has come out of a terrible time,” noted trustee Danielle Connelly, who added that the current online system proved there was a lot of room for dialogue at the board table.

Public participation changes

Hachlaf added that policies 7 and 8 would involve obtaining feedback, and that the draft that was included in the meeting report was not something that would be “rubber stamped,” and that the goal of the discussion during the meeting was to get said talks about policies 7 and 8 off the ground.

Dhaliwal encouraged trustees to either pass along any feedback about the policies to Hachlaf in writing, or to voice their concerns during the meeting.

Trustee Marc Andres said it was ideal to fully disclose definitions of certain terms like “improper conduct,” for instance, so that terms aren’t vague and that they can be clearly laid out for everyone to understand. Andres was making reference to 7.5, which covers the conduct of board meeting attendees.

While discussing the removal of the second question period, both Connelly and Andres said it was an important portion of the meetings, with Andres calling it “thought-provoking.” Trustee Cheryl Sluis was also in agreement, while Russell said she didn’t find the second Q&A to include meaningful engagement.

“Maybe we just need to look at how we’re using that time. Where I think it’s particularly unsuccessful is when a decision is made and people are feeling powerless and upset, and it’s basically a time to yell at the board,” said Russell. “But the points that were made about the importance of what discussion has happened, I’d certainly be open to considering those, but it really needs to be matters of clarity.”

The next steps will involve Hachlaf taking the comments shared by the board to include in another run of drafting. His goal is to get the first review done for the next board meeting or operations meeting, with an ideal completion before spring break, if not sooner.