By Pepper Parr
September 8th, 2020
BURLINGTON, ON
It started as 1-1 conversations that Andrea Grebenc had with trustees on the virtual meetings the Halton District School Board was holding.
Grebenc thought it was time to hold meetings that took place in the Board room and not have all the participants communicating from their keyboards and cameras.
The technology at the School Board Board Room was at times not up to the demands of a meeting that was live and local for some and virtual for others – they made it work.
Once she had canvassed the 13 trustees she met with Director of Education Stuart Miller to look into the possibility of moving back into the Board room.
The question was brought up at an Agenda Review meeting early in August.
“We had to find out if public health regulations would allow us back into the building and how it would restrict us.
“Once we received guidelines from staff and reviewed them, we had a short conversation about it in private session. That resulted in the outline of a plan to see about moving forward. The limitations, physically and technologically, were known. I then posted a sign-up sheet for the first regular board meeting on September 2.”
Trustee Rocha
Trustees Gerrits, Gray, Rocha, Shuttleworth, Vice Chair Ehl Harrison and Grebenc were there as well as Director Miller.
“We were limited by the board room technology in the room right now as it is hardwired to our desks (which are not even a metre apart. The two cameras would not be able to capture everyone because of the social distancing.
“We settled on six as the maximum number of Trustees to take part.”
However after the first run Grebenc is looking at being in the Board room a little differently.
“There were some problems – but after last week’s pilot, that may be reduced as we had some difficulties with feedback and mics not working properly.
“Bringing the Board room up to the different technical standard was not something we wanted to do. The limited resources (yes, we spend a lot of money – but there is never enough to go around) result in our deciding not to funnel resources from the classrooms and central administration to expedite the technology changes needed for 13 people (11 Trustees & 2 Student Trustees) who are still able to meet and complete their work online. We felt it was more important to have the whole system focused on student and staff safety and the learning environments.
Ear buds were driving her frantic – the six screen she had to keep an eye on made it a busy meeting.
“No worries – we will get there – it is just not a top priority – nor should it be.
“We are following the public health guidelines that were created for the board office. Facilities staff have measured out and designated places we are able to sit to meet the guidelines. There is hand sanitizer available in several places and masks as well. Washrooms are now single person. There are arrows directing us around, etc.
“Personally, I have to say that my set-up at home was a lot easier as I had my three monitors to work with (2 personally owned monitors and my board laptop) and didn’t have to wear the truly uncomfortable (verging on painful) earbuds.
“There are quite a number of screens that I need to use for the meeting to run smoothly:
voting screen,
voting responses,
request to speak form,
speaker’s list,
the google meet screen itself for the meeting,
email for emergency notifications (when someone is having technical issues like getting kicked off.
“The regulation is still in place that would allow the board meetings to happen remotely, so if we have to, we can function completely at a distance again. We are going to be in the board room again on the 16th and probably every meeting going forward.
Trustee Gray
“As for a public gallery, no. At this time, we are not opening the gallery to the public, but are continuing to live-stream and record board meetings as usual. We do not have any broadcast of the Google meeting available in the board room due to sound feedback issues, so the public would have to sit in the room with earphones watching on a personal device to have access to what everyone is saying – people might as well be doing that at home as there is nothing special going on in the room itself.
“We don’t even talk amongst ourselves in the room because we have to watch our screens and wear the earbuds to hear what is going on.
“We don’t have barriers between us physically in the room, but it sure feels that way socially.”
What is really interesting is that it was the Board of Education that was the first to edge forward a little bit and have at least some of the trustees in the room while conducting public business.
If Burlington city council wanted to come out of their closet as it were they could do so easily – there are just seven members of Council – there are 13 trustees plus two student trustees.
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