Following an outpouring of emails from concerned parents, the Durham District School Board rejected a motion to remove public questions during meetings and instead passed a motion for a report defining the public’s right to participate.
A September Governance and Policy Committee meeting caught the attention of a local parental rights activist group after it caught wind of a recommendation to amend bylaws and remove the question period from the school board meeting agendas.
The DDSB Concerned Parents Facebook group urged its community members to attend the next meeting on Monday when the proposal was up for a vote. The group told its members to send letters to the trustees to vote against removing sections 5.12.13 to 5.12.16 of the DDSB bylaws, which would eliminate “the taxpayers right to ask questions at school board meetings.”
“While I may not attend every meeting or regularly pose questions, I have exercised my right to do so in the past, and I fully intend to protect this right going forward,” the letter said. “As a taxpayer, I believe this proposal infringes on my rights, including my Charter Rights to freedom of expression, which takes precedence over any such policy changes.”
Ontario laws on school board committee meetings include the right for the public to participate in public meetings. However, the laws do not specify that this must be done during a question-and-answer period during meetings.
None of the trustees voted to second the motion to remove the question period from the bylaws, defeating the motion.
During Monday’s question period, one man, Dylan Reynolds, after asking about potential winter bus cancellations, said he has been attending the public question period since 2020, that it was meaningful to him, and that he opposed the motion to remove it.
After the motion was defeated, Vice Chair Deb Oldfield proposed a new motion to send the recommendation back to the governance and policy committee “for further consideration” and that the director deliver a report to the committee that “addresses the issue of a defined right to public participation.”
“In the emails that we received, many people mentioned a taxpayer’s right or a charter right (to question period), which really aren’t things,” Oldfield said. “So, what that highlighted for me is that when it’s removed from a by-law, then there isn’t (a right.)”
The trustees voted, and Oldfield passed the motion. Most affirmed the importance of question periods or other ways of “meaningful engagement” for the community.
“I think we’ve heard over email and from Dylan today and through various community members that the public question period is something that is meaningful to them, and beyond that, engagement with the school community and the board is meaningful to them as well,” Chairperson Emma Cunningham said. “I quite like the idea of making sure that that is a cemented right for all people to be able to participate with us.”
Another trustee, Donna Edwards, wanted the report requested by Oldfield’s motion also to include an extensive list of how the community can interact with the school board trustees outside of the question period.
As it’s a motion requesting the governance and policy committee director to submit a report, It’s unclear how that “right” to participate in the question period would interact with people banned from school property for their activism.
The sections that the original defeated motion purported to remove from the DDSB bylaws outline the procedure for a member of the public to ask questions; it mentions the public having to request permission from the board to present their question to the committee.
“The Board reserves the right to deny an individual or party the opportunity to ask a question, or to otherwise limit a question where the question is designed or framed in a manner that would be contrary to the Board’s commitments and statutory duties,” Section 5.12.15 of the DDSB bylaw said.
The DDSB Concerned Parents group noted last year that trustees read their questions out loud, preventing the community group from asking supplementary questions if they felt their questions weren’t answered appropriately.
The school board’s next Governance and Policy Committee meeting is on Oct. 30, 2024.