What does a trustee do in a day? I try to explain my day.
On December 17, we held our second "real" open board meeting and the last of 2018. The McGee Chamber Choir opened our evening with two carols and a song about mental health and suicide. I don't think there were many dry eyes after that performance. The trustees had the opportunity to address two emergent issues during the meeting. Both are related to the safety. The first was around the safety of elementary school students, which was where Trustee Cho asked for a review of safety procedures in our schools. It was passed unanimously and the staff will be reporting on the topic in February, preliminarily, and more fully by April. The second was regarding a student at one of our secondary schools creating and
There was a board meeting on November 26th, which was the first one where we had discussion and motions of substance. Trustee Allan Wong sprung a motion on us -- which was a timely one, so not holding that against him -- but we did spend a fair bit of time debating wording, which brought me right back to the days I spent in the student council chambers with SUS. The motion itself was not controversial. It was to direct the board to get in touch with the province on the Cavell issue, essentially. The meat of the wording had to do with what exactly we are being directed to do, and while I'm not sure it will affect the actual conversation we have, it's good
This trustee chaired her first committee meeting (Finance Committee) last night. I focused primarily on making sure everyone, especially the non-trustee members, could have a chance to speak. There were some mechanics that I was unsure about, but luckily the committee members had much patience and the staff was there to help.It was an interesting exercise in blending Robert's Rules and the consensus rules that I'm more used to at cohousing and Green meetings. I couldn't diverge far from RR, but at committees we strive for consensus, so I felt that a temperature check with the committee members was an OK thing to try. There were some rounds of casual "I see many nods around the table" but the temp check offered more clarity. (A