Last month the board’s superintendent, chair and vice-chair met with Jim Gunn and earlier this month the full board and senior staff met with him to gain an understanding of his role and to design an action plan.
The school board says some steps can be taken to “relatively quickly” address some of the auditor general’s recommendations. Others will require long-term planning.
Some key findings listed in the auditor general’s report included:
• the board's roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined;
• the board is not effectively overseeing educational results;
• management does not effectively monitor the school improvement process;
• management does not monitor student performance in many subject areas.
Moving forward, the board’s response to the auditor general’s report will become a regular agenda item on all meetings of the board and its education committee. It will also be a regular agenda item on monthly meetings the board holds with school principals.
Special public committee of the whole board meetings with the agenda item dedicated to the recommendations in the AG report will be held in the upcoming months.
A series of professional development sessions will be held to help the board expand its understanding of effective board governance, the mutually supportive roles of governance and administration, and how a school board can carry out an annual assessment of its effectiveness.
In-camera sessions will be held after each board meeting and committee meeting to assess the effectiveness of the meeting. In a report by board chair Donna Tidd at the board’s Jan. 13 meeting, it was stated, “These meetings will be in-camera so that board members and staff may speak openly about how individuals contributed to or detracted from the effectiveness of the meeting.”
Questioned by the Vanguard and CJLS about the in-camera sessions, the board said at its Jan. 13 meeting that this falls under the area of personnel, which is a permitted in-camera use.
“It’s part of the plan with Dr. Gunn to work through the recommendations from the auditor general and the comments that were made in his report,” said Tidd. “Dr. Gunn has the minister’s backing for this plan…The minister has given the approval to do that so, that’s where we have the authority to have those specific in-camera sessions. The only thing that will be discussed is that actual meeting that just took place. Not the AG report.”
The school board is holding a working session with Gunn on Jan. 19. This is not a public session.
“When we look at the recommendations of the report, there will be public sessions when we’re having discussions and sharing what we’re doing. We’ll also be sharing with the school advisory councils and principals,” said superintendent Lisa Doucet. “But the working session, that will be a private session.”
Doucet said a message the board is hearing is, “it is difficult for staff in our schools, that morale is certainly down in the schools, because people are feeling the impact.”
Said Doucet, “We’re trying to do our best to send out the message that this is serious, we do take it seriously. We want to make sure that the staff know that we’re here to support them and work through this together as a team.”
Doucet said she and senior board staff have offered to speak to visit schools and speak with their staffs directly about the report.
The Auditor General issued 10 specific recommendations. Some of them include:
• addressing the reasons for the unsatisfactory performance of its students in literacy and numeracy. In addition, the Board should regularly review reports on student performance, including students on individualized programs, to hold management accountable for the delivery of educational services to its students.
• ensuring that teacher and principal evaluations are completed according to Board policy, that teachers are adhering to the provincial program of studies, and that staff development needs are being met.
• evaluating the superintendent’s performance against the responsibilities of the position and take any necessary action.
• regularly monitoring the performance of students in all subject areas and take the required action to ensure student achievement meets expectations.
• ensuring that professional growth plans are completed and that plans link to Board and school improvement goals.