Do our public school trustees have a clue how out of touch they are?

As our story this week on the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board’s practice of meeting before their regular meetings shows not all of our elected officials believe in full transparency.

We all know what happens when politicians meet out of the public eye. Wait a minute – we don’t know what exactly happens, that’s why we put strict limits on when they can do so.

We elect people to take care of business on our behalf, but we expect to be able to check in on them whenever we want. When those elected officials start doing business out of the public eye, we naturally get upset.

STORY: Board’s ‘shadow’ meetings not good practice: governance expert

Much like the rules governing city councillors, school board trustees are allowed to meet in camera (behind closed doors) only under specific circumstances.

The Education Act says they can shut the public out when they are discussing: a) security of the board b) the disclosure of intimate, personal or financial information in respect of a member of the board or committee or the employee or prospective employee of the board or a pupil and his/her guardian c) the acquisition or disposal of a school site d) decisions in respect of negotiations with employees of the board; or e) litigation affecting the board.

You’ll notice that going over the night’s agenda doesn’t fit into those five categories.

Yet, this is exactly what is done before every school board meeting.

Current board chair Judith Bishop downplays the briefings  as dealing with the process of the upcoming meeting and not the content.

Others disagree.

Former west Mountain trustee and board chair Al Pierce said the trustees would discuss their concerns about the agenda items in private  in order to portray a professional image in the public session.

“That’s the way I was trained,” he said.

“When I got there, that was happening. It was all done under the auspices of, ‘We want to look professional and leave a good image in the public.’ ”

And that’s wrong

Trustees are elected to represent their constituents who have a right to know if their elected official disagrees with an agenda item or policy.

Issues should be discussed in public, even if that leads to uncomfortable disagreements. That’s what democracy is all about.

Meeting in private, even for briefings, can lead to abuse.

In fact, last week, just a few days after Bishop told Hamilton Community News no board business is “advanced” during so-called caucus meetings, the board sat down to parse out its committee positions for the coming year. At a meeting the public wasn’t notified of or invited to observe.

The trustees are not the only ones the public should have a problem with. The Ministry of Education doesn’t actively police the boards under its purview. In fact, the ministry says anyone with a complaint should first take it to the board itself — laughable, since it is asking the alleged offender to investigate itself.

If the ministry believes it is okay for a local board to run roughshod over the public, it seems that would be one provincial department that could easily be trimmed in order to save taxpayer dollars.

The bottom line is this: taxpayers expect transparency. Elected officials should give us nothing less.