School board trustees entrusted with certain roles and responsibilities in B.C.

CHILLIWACK — After serving as a member of the SD33 Board of Education the past four years, including time as the current board chair, Jared Mumford is fairly well acquainted with the roles and responsibilities of a school trustee.

Mumford, who is running for Chilliwack City Council rather than a second term on the school board in this Saturday’s municipal election, says the school board’s primary directive is to make sure the district is headed in the right direction as an organization while trustees carefully oversee its financial position.

“A trustee’s main role is to support the proper function of the board and uphold their fiduciary duty to the district,” Mumford said. “Trustees hold no individual power or autonomy, they hold a vote at the table, and only the board can provide direction within the boundaries of their defining legislative framework.”

Image: Supplied by Jared Mumford / Current school board chair Jared Mumford says school board trustees are primarily tasked with maintaining the proper function of the board and upholding their fiduciary duty to the district.

With the overall goal of academic achievement and the well-being of students top of mind, Mumford says this work is achieved through several clearly-defined steps the board undertakes.

“The board’s work is achieved through the creation of a strategic plan, the development and passage of an annual budget, the development of policy, and the hiring of the superintendent as the sole employee of the board intended on operationalizing their direction,” Mumford said. “There are other pieces that are also important, such as the passage of district planning documents, communication and accountability within their community, and appeals proceedings.”

Trustees are meant to represent the whole of their community in recognition that all communities are unique and have different challenges. Bringing partners and stakeholders to the table for informed discussion and decision making is important, especially when it comes to such core district documents as the strategic plan, which guides the work of the district, Mumford states.

“Tied to this mandate is a significant operating and capital budget; in SD33 it was close to $750 million over this past 4-year term,” Mumford reported.

The board is responsible for passage of the initial budget, the amended budget and the annual audit; trustees monitor it and are accountable for it through communication from senior staff. The district budget must also be balanced, meaning fiscal responsibility is a core duty of the board and its individual members. A significant portion of the budget is committed to staff costs and collective agreements.

“So, it is vitally important that resources be allocated in support of the vision and goals of the strategic plan supported by the board,” Mumford said.

Boards of Education are responsible for learning resources that they need, and policies are in place to clearly define the resource approval process as well as an equally clear procedure for appeal. The ministerial framework indicates that Boards of Education should leave the decision of choosing resources to educators and that educators should be involved in the creation of learning resource policies, Mumford pointed out.

As such, the Learning Resources policy is embedded in Section 600 of the district policies, which requires policy changes to go through the Education Policy Advisory Committee (EPAC). EPAC is comprised of partner groups, including the CTA, CUPE, CPVPA, management, DPAC, Indigenous community (through the Indigenous Education Advisory Committee) and students.

Mumford says that while the Board does not craft the learning resources policy itself, the policies are sent to the Board for review and approval, and can be sent back to staff or the committee for further work in accordance with the district’s policy development process.

On the topic of sexual orientation and gender identity, or SOGI, Mumford says because SOGI was embedded into the B.C. Human Rights Code, the provincial government has since provided school districts with resources from which they can learn how to make their schools and administrative practices more inclusive. SOGI-inclusive practices can be brought into schools via codes of conduct, policies and resources. It provides clear direction for educators through such resources as SOGI Leads and the SOGI Education Network, for the specific purpose of reducing bullying and discrimination.

Mumford says trustees have no jurisdiction to remove SOGI-inclusive practices. The B.C. government has recently released a statement that SOGI is specifically designed to create a safe place for learning, free of discrimination and is a resource network to facilitate safe classrooms for all children.

In its purest form, school boards epitomize local government. While trustees are a function of local government, they can be dismissed via the B.C. School Act by the provincial government.

“While it is rare, it has happened in the recent past,” Mumford said. “The Vancouver School Board was dismissed in 2016 for refusing to balance the district budget and in light of the toxicity among board members. In cases where boards are dismissed, a respected educator, retired or from another district, is usually appointed as the ‘Official Trustee’. Depending on the next scheduled election date, a by-election may be called (at the cost of the school district).”