New Vancouver School Board Attempts to Improve Transparency

Vancouver’s new batch of school trustees used their first full meeting after the election to begin to tackle some long-running issues with school board meetings and transparency.

Cardwell, a newly elected OneCity trustee and a former Vancouver School Board superintendent, introduced a motion to the Nov. 9 meeting to refer his suggested changes to the board’s Policy and Governance Standing Committee for their thoughts and recommendations back to the board. The motion passed.

Cardwell’s motion continued work attempted by former OneCity trustee Jennifer Reddy. Reddy chose not to run for re-election in the Oct. 17 civic election.

“I sat in the gallery for a number of years and observed a number of processes that I felt were not open, were not transparent, were not democratic, hindered the opportunity for the public, for our employee groups, for parents to contribute and participate in our meetings,” said Cardwell in his introduction to the motion.

Cardwell’s motion suggested restricting the power of the board’s Agenda Setting Committee to setting and scheduling meeting agendas only. That’s because the current rules require trustees to submit meeting agenda items four weeks in advance to the committee, which can decide whether or not to include them.

Cardwell’s motion also asks for recording more detailed public meeting minutes and allowing the public to submit questions to the board in person, in writing and online (currently, members of the public are only allowed to submit questions in writing). The motion also asks to keep recordings of past meetings online for at least five years (currently, recordings are deleted after one year).

The changes Cardwell proposes are similar to the changes proposed by Reddy two years ago this month after parents, employee groups and unions complained about the public school board’s increasing lack of transparency and accountability.

Reddy, who served as a Vancouver School Board trustee from 2018 to 2026, was a member of the same OneCity political party that Cardwell ran with in the recent school board election.

The new school board is now made up of four COPE trustees; three OneCity trustees, including Cardwell; and two Green trustees. Suzie Mah, a COPE trustee, is the only returning school board trustee.

Reddy’s suggested changes were also sent to the Policy and Governance Committee, twice, before the board ultimately ruled on the motion in November 2025. The amended motion was successful in requiring public meeting agendas to be released a week in advance of the meetings.

But her attempt to reign in private board meetings were unsuccessful. And the availability of public meeting recordings was limited to just one year.

Cardwell’s motion also asked for changes that went beyond what Reddy sought, including allowing in-person public attendees of school board meetings to record their own video or audio of the meeting.

In January 2025, school board staff called the police on Vik Khanna, a former chair of the District Parent Advisory Council, after he refused to stop recording the meeting on his phone, as then-board chair Victoria Jung repeatedly requested.

Cardwell’s motion also allows for trustees to use props during meetings if approved by the board chair.

In June 2025, after bringing in a dog muzzle to a public board meeting to emphasize her allegation that the board was muzzling her, Reddy was criticized by her fellow trustees. Trustees and the public are currently banned from using props in presentations to the board.

Cardwell attended the meeting where Reddy brought in a dog muzzle, and later posted about it on Facebook.

The board’s next Policy and Governance Standing Committee meeting, the earliest time the committee could address the motions, is scheduled for Nov. 18.