Asked to Improve Transparency, School Board Keeps Private Meetings

A Vancouver school board trustee is disappointed after her motion to improve transparency was amended to allow private board meetings at the school board’s discretion and to delete public recordings of meetings after one year.

Jennifer Reddy’s November 2024 motion calling for improved public access and board transparency had set the updated policy process in motion, but she was the sole trustee to vote against adopting the changes at an Oct. 29 board meeting.

“The suggested changes to the policy were not requested by stakeholder groups at any public meeting or in communications that we received from the public,” said Reddy at the Oct. 29 meeting, as she asked trustees to vote against the changes.

Amendments Reddy introduced at the Oct. 29 meeting, including allowing trustees to participate in meetings online in emergencies and clarifying limits on how often individuals can address the board on a topic, were not passed. Reddy is the only OneCity trustee on the board.

Trustees Lois Chan-Pedley (Green), Christopher Richardson (independent) and Chair Victoria Jung (independent) pushed back on Reddy’s assertion the final policies did not reflect stakeholders’ requests.

“Some of the comments made were extremely disrespectful to the formal stakeholder groups who showed up at these Policy and Governance Committee meetings,” said Jung.

“To say that their feedback isn’t important or didn’t have a great deal of input, I think, is misleading.”

At their Oct. 29 board meeting, the school board concluded a nearly yearlong process of updating Policy 7: Board Operations and Policy 8: Standing Committees, which dictate how board, public delegation and standing committee meetings operate. Trustees affiliated with ABC, Green and independent municipal parties voted to approve the updated versions. Sole COPE Trustee Suzie Mah was absent.

Reddy introduced her original motion last year as a solution to the issues teachers, parents and district support staff have been raising for years about problems with the board’s accountability and transparency.

Her suggestions included allowing in-person and online public viewing of entire standing committees’ meetings; ensuring all board and committees meetings are recorded in minutes in detail; allowing stakeholder input on committee meeting agendas; and greater restrictions on private board meetings.

Regarding the private meetings, Reddy wanted to allow for 12 of the 13 reasons Policy 7 outlined for holding private board meetings, including discussing employee conduct, private student information, medical reports, legal issues and accident claims.

The 13th reason was, “such other matters as the Board may decide, in keeping with legislative requirements.” Reddy has criticized the frequency of the board’s private meetings: as of Oct. 1, 2025, the board has held three this school year.

Instead the board voted to keep the 13th reason, but amalgamate two reasons to hold private meetings — “Business interests” and “Matters, the disclosure of which, would be harmful to Third Party” — into “Matters where disclosure could harm the business interests of a third party.”

Like the district’s other three standing committees, Policy and Governance Committee meetings — where Reddy’s motion was debated this past spring — are not open to in-person public attendance.

All committee meetings are livestreamed and recorded on YouTube. But livestreams end when the committee breaks into smaller discussion groups, which aren’t recorded in meeting minutes either.

The Tyee contacted stakeholder groups represented on the Policy and Governance Committee for their response to the trustees’ comments.

We also reached out to the Vancouver District Labour Council, which supported Reddy’s motion and whose membership includes unions represented on the Policy and Governance Committee.

“Unfortunately, the changes which have been approved by the board run completely counter to its objectives,” wrote labour council President Stephen von Sychowski, in an email to The Tyee.

“Parents, students, workers and the public at large deserve a school board which functions democratically, and with transparency and accountability. We are far from that today, and these changes move us even further.”

Both Vancouver teachers’ union locals declined comment as they are working on an open letter to the board about comments trustees made about stakeholders input at the Oct. 29 meeting.

“We are not happy with what was said,” said John Silver, first vice-president with the Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association, adding he was not referring to Reddy’s statements.

A representative of the Vancouver Association of Secondary School Administrators provided a comment by email, before asking for a retraction and not responding to a follow up email.

Melanie Cheng, chair of the District Parent Advisory Committee, would only speak to The Tyee as a concerned parent. She said no committee executive would speak to the policy updates, as they feared reprimand by the school board.

“I don’t know how we’re to function if we can’t have respectful communication, and if they can’t share information to inform proper decision-making,” said Cheng.

After publication of this article, the DPAC Secretary Sherry Breshears got in touch with The Tyee to say that the DPAC executive had not been "consulted [by Cheng] about their feelings on this issue." Breshears said the DPAC executive had provided written feedback to the school board on the policy updates.'

In an interview with The Tyee on Nov. 5, school board chair Jung acknowledged not every stakeholder groups’ feedback are reflected in the final policy 7 and 8 drafts, as there were many competing views among the groups.

“When I said it was disrespectful for those comments to be made about our stakeholder groups, I went to 17 meetings that we discussed this at, and a lot of them were open table dialogue,” she said.

“Often, if things don’t go the way people want, they say that their voice hasn’t been heard.”

The final policy drafts included one change Reddy called for: public board meeting agendas must now be published a week in advance, up from the previous four-day deadline.

The revised motions included many changes Reddy had not asked for, including requiring trustees to submit motions four weeks in advance of board meetings; requiring 48-hour notice for a trustee to attend meetings virtually; allowing private board meetings at board discretion; and deleting public recordings of committee and board meetings after one year.

“I don’t think there’s a reason to keep our work not posted in public. There’s nothing to hide,” said Reddy during the October board meeting.

Members of the public can still access recordings of the district standing committee meetings back to 2019 on the district’s YouTube channel. However, board meeting recordings before September 2024 are no longer available.