← Public Delegation Board Meeting June 15, 2026
Karen, I'd like to call this meeting to order. With deep gratitude and respect, we are honored to be learning and unlearning on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Hamaquim, Squahomish, Ocumayo, and TTsleil-Waututh. I want to draw some attention specifically to some of our Indigenous grads that we've seen transition over the last few weeks, and that has been an absolute treat to be to bear witness to and i wish them all well and all of the grads well as they they move on from k to 12. this meeting is being broadcast live and the audio and video recordings will be available after the meeting ends We have a strong commitment to ethical conduct and it is our responsibility to ensure that our meetings are conducted in a safe and respectful manner. As a Board of Education for a school district, it's important we model the behavior we expect of students in our schools. And a friendly reminder to those on the call today that it is our collective responsibility and I ask that you assist me in maintaining decorum when needed. We are joined tonight on Teams. I welcome Superintendent Helen McGregor, Secretary-Treasurer Flavia Coghlan. and um trustees on the call are vice chair janet fraser trustee lois chan pedley trustee preetie friedcoat trustee susie ma trustee christopher richardson and did we see hear from trustee ready yet Trustee Reddy, I believe it's here. I'm not scrolling between if someone can. Yes, Trustee Reddy is present. Fabulous. Good to see you, Trustee Reddy. And we have regrets from Trustees Alfred Chan and Josh Singh. all right thank you everyone for joining us today we'll move to uh the agenda we have delegation tonight and before we hear from our delegate i just want to review a few uh thanks i see your hand jennifer thanks i hadn't seen your face pop up yet Before we hear, I just want to remind everyone of a few things. Time allotted is five minutes. And we ask that, of course, everyone comply with board norms of conduct and decorum. We ask that you do not disclose any personal information. That could be just personal information in general. I'll say that. We don't want to infringe on anyone's individual privacy, and the speaker should focus on the delegation topic. And because these meetings are recorded and form part of public record, delegates should protect the privacy rights of others. Board members may direct questions of clarification through me. Please just raise a virtual hand and I will keep track. through the virtual hands and not uh not just hands on the video uh it's prohibited to make video or audio recordings a timer will be used to keep us on the five minutes and let's move on to our first person tonight and that is megan mcdermott bc civil liberties association who will be speaking on police uh police and school programs and vsb governance responsibilities All right, Megan, can you hear me okay? I can. Just one moment, please. I do see a hand up. Trustee Reddy, do you have something to share?
I do, Chair. Thanks. I just noticed on the agenda, is there only one delegation on the agenda? Okay. I just wanted to clarify because I did hear from three other delegates that didn't get... accepted for the delegation. And so I wanted to share a comment and then a question about this meeting and then the subsequent minutes that will follow. So what I wanted to share was that It's certainly for me as an individual trustee, I do want to hear what those three delegates had to say. One was about the Britannia Hockey Academy. Another one is co-pilot in the district and another is out of school care. And so if those I certainly want to hear from those delegates here as a delegations and I want to on the record that I don't agree that they would be denied. However, if they do submit something like a document or a letter, how will that be included in the public record of the meeting? Just to make sure that trustees are aware of the perspectives that they'd like trustees to be aware of.
So we have policies that have been approved by the board that we follow. And so if they actually request to speak to something that doesn't follow along with their policies, then they don't get put onto the agenda so for example governance decisions versus operational decisions we ask that those who do not follow go fit into our policy we ask them to send information and we i received one probably about eight to ten minutes ago from someone who said because they actually didn't fall within the policy. They wanted to share the information with trustees. So that's how the board has managed delegations for the term that I've been on. And so if people would like trustees to have information, then they can send that through our email addresses as per usual. Okay, so we're going to go to our first... Chair, follow up? Oh, sure. Go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks for outlining that. So when you mentioned that they do send a letter and it goes to trustees, but does that become a part of the minutes of this meeting so that it forms part of the public record?
No. So if they do not, if they're not within the policy to delegate, it would not be on the agenda tonight. should it follow and fit within the policy then it would be included in the meeting agenda uh go ahead christopher richardson or trustee richardson i saw your hand up there you're on mute okay um thank you um chair um just a point
order um trustee ready's inquiry i think it's been consistent that we that when a delegation falls outside the policy that they are encouraged to uh what their choices are is to be within the policy or to simply use the normal channels to communicate with trustees so the suggestion that a trust that there would be mentioned in these minutes. That has not been our policy to date. But I thank you for clarifying. I too would be interested in the Britannia ice hockey situation, co-pilot, which is an emerging issue. And certainly out of school care has been something that we're struggling with. Trustee Reddy, I hope that the clarification that our policies are being followed, but we are actively encouraging people to qualify as a delegation or to use an alternative, which is to inform us in any way that they wish directly to. And I would encourage all trustees so that we're all benefit from the information that people have to forward or to offer. Thank you.
Okay, going to agenda item, is there any other comment before we go begin delegation? I did get a note saying that closed captioning is not working, and I'm not sure if that's something that's done in real time for our IT team, or if that's done by adding it after to the recording, but just to flag there. We are going to go to our guest today, Megan McDermott. Can you hear me okay? I can. Can you hear me? I can hear you. You can begin and I can also see you, so you can begin now. Great.
Good evening, Chair and Trustees. My name is Megan McDermott. I am the Policy Director with the BC Civil Liberties Association. legal nonprofit in vancouver that's worked for over 60 years to defend and enhance human rights thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you about police in vancouver schools the submission they have before you ask for a moratorium on the programs across bc tonight i want to focus on why this board has a direct governance responsibility to act regardless of what the province of BC does next. Police in school programs are often described as safety programs, but the evidence before you shows that they can introduce serious and foreseeable risks into learning and working environments. Those risks include use of force, surveillance, criminalization, boundary violations, discrimination, and blurred lines of institutional accountability when harm does occur. The submission that you have also addresses a very serious incident last year involving an allegation of excessive use of force by a school liaison officer in a Vancouver public school context. I'm going to call school liaison officers SLOs. I'm not going to speak to further details about that tonight, but encourage you to review the details in the submission. The point for this board is institutional. When a police officer is embedded in a school community and serious harm is alleged, who is accountable to the student, the worker, the parent, or the community member affected? If the answer is that the board hosts the program but has no meaningful authority over the officer's conduct, placement, discipline, reporting, or their removal, then that is not a safe governance model. It's a gap in accountability and a risk to school safety. The submission also addresses a serious safeguarding concern that recently came to light from a report by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner. It was a four year long misconduct event that involved a Vancouver police officer whose abusive relationship with a former student originated through contact in a school setting. The matter raises obvious concerns about police authority and their access to youth, mentorship, career guidance, and informal relationship building. It also raises troubling questions about how much school boards know when misconduct arises from school-based police contact, or in another case that's in the submission, when an SLO is under investigation for very serious misconduct, but still continues to be hosted in a Vancouver public school. This concern by the BCCLA and other human rights advocates is heightened by the fact that BC's police oversight body is currently doing a systemic investigation into workplace related sexualized conduct in municipal police workplaces. And this expressly includes the Vancouver Police Department. These issues are directly relevant to where schools should rely, whether schools should rely on police officers as mentors, presenters, informal supports.
and relationship builders with children and youth. So the questions go to the core of your role. Students and staff should not be asked to rely on a partnership model where responsibility is shared when the program's being promoted, but when harm occurs that there's no accountability whatsoever, or the school board or the schools involved claim to not have any knowledge or power over the school liaison officer program. Your board also has human rights obligations. As you know, the Human Rights Commissioner for BC has repeatedly called for these programs to end, emphasizing that Indigenous, Black, other racialized students, and also students with disabilities may fear police because of their community's disproportionate exposure to harmful police interactions. And these concerns are not alleviated by renaming, redesigning, or softening the visual markers of policing. So when public officials say SLOs build trust between youth and police, the board must ask, trust for whom and on what evidence? In Vancouver, the police board has admitted discriminatory police conduct against a 12-year-old health-sick girl and her grandfather. And the Human Rights Commissioner recently released their final review that found that the collaborative... systemic reforms intended to address the racism were not fully realized and that is not a side issue it goes directly to whether VP officers should be embedded in the schools that you have an oversight role over these are serious claims the recent evaluation report uh reports positive perceptions but these are just perceptions of safety and not evidence of safety There's a number of calls that we have for you, and they echo those in the submissions, but I realize that I'm short on time. So I just want to end by saying that Vancouver students and workers deserve schools built on care, trust, and accountability and support. And I urge you to end the programming. Thank you.
Thank you, Megan. I appreciate you taking the time to come and speak to the board today. Are there any questions for clarification from trustees?
Trustee Reddy.
Thanks. Thanks, Megan, for your letter and for your presentation tonight. I had a clarifying question around what you mentioned with the concerns about the governance model and oversight, and that has been on my mind as well. Just around when you mentioned the blurred lines of accountability and when something does arise, that isn't under the control of, say, the board or the School Act, who currently, in your view, is responsible? And does that put the board at risk, in your view, with the letter that you wrote and the assessment that you've done? And or is there more accountability that the board should be asking for from the police department or police board side of things, knowing that they're also governed by the Police Act? I'm guessing that it falls under that jurisdiction, which we have no authority over. So just wanting to clarify sort of what you're seeing there.
Yeah, sure. First of all, I'll say that at least based on public reporting, the reports into these programs being reintroduced or remodeled, we see a lot of champions come forward and speaking about it. There's no hesitation whatsoever. from the institutional players involving this Vancouver School Board. However, when issues have come to light, including when parent district and advisory councils have stepped forward to express concerns about particular officers that they learn are under scrutiny for serious misconduct issues, that's when we tend to see... what we would say the accountability gaps come through and a complete lack of transparency over how that program actually works. So it's wonderful to see the memorandum of understanding that was created because as with a lot of issues in our democracy, our public bodies will contract into partnerships with one another and it's always great when they're shared online. just great for everybody involved to understand what might happen. Now, under the Memorandum of Understanding, the most that we can tell is that there's a steering committee or a committee made of high-level officials where any of these concerns about any matters arising under the program mandate can be discussed. Yet, if you look online, there's no, or at least from my research and experience, I haven't seen at all any of the agendas shared with the public about what's discussed at these meetings, any of the minutes of what is discussed at the meetings, et cetera. What I have seen, however, our materials and also media reports that just says basically the school board and its administrators will just defer to the police department and say, well, we have no jurisdiction over this. We can't do any investigations. But from the perspective of just human rights and the rule of law, there's nothing whatsoever stopping the school board from asking these questions, demanding transparency by the police department. or if they don't think that they have those rights, then at the very least, amending your memorandum of understanding to ensure that all that information is publicly available. It shouldn't be, from our perspective, we shouldn't have to wait for reports into public hearings about serious allegations of misconduct for parents, students, and workers to learn that the SLO that they're expected to trust and that's mentoring their children has been under scrutiny. So proactively what you could do if you don't think you have the powers is at least amend that agreement to the best you can to make sure that you know exactly how the SLOs are being placed, what can do if people do have concerns, also share the conversations being had at a very high level
about those folks that we see as being responsible for the concerns when they do arise. I believe they meet monthly, but again, from what we've seen, there's just no, yeah, there's no transparency around what's being discussed at that level, but it's good to see the MOU can be amended on a regular basis. So we would urge you to at least make those changes to make the maximal transparency possible.
We have another question from Trustee Ma.
It's actually a procedural question. I just had somebody contact me through text. About audio? Yeah, there was no audio throughout the presentation, nor were there captions. Correct.
And seven people were... Yes, and then I let them know that it still wasn't working and it's on now. It is working as of about two minutes ago.
So Chair, the problem is this. The person, so the speaker.
Trustee Ma, I think the question is when we release this video recording, will there be audio? And that's something we can ask because if not, then yes, of course we would, you know, we would need that. But I think that's the next question. And whether people heard it live or not is unfortunate. But I think the important part is, do we have the recording?
Yeah, no, Chair. What I'm saying is that it's one thing to have the recording, right? It's another thing to have a recording with no sound when the presenter has presented. And if there is no capture of what the person has presented and there are no captions, of the presentation, then people, the public, have not been able to listen to the public delegation.
So let's ask a question. Let's go at this from a place of curiosity and ask IT if they do have the recording with audio. Just because the outside watching live might not hear it, we don't know that it's not available to us. So I will, how about, you know, we'll take that offline and we'll check with IT. No. And if it's not available,
I don't agree. I think what is important...
So why don't we check with IT now then? Is that what you'd prefer?
Can you let me speak and then I will make the suggestion if you let me speak?
I would love to let you speak. Absolutely. Go ahead, Justyna.
Thank you very much. So what I would suggest is that if the chair can ask IT whether or not the speaker's presentation has been recorded with audio and with captions, and if that is the case, then I think that that is fine. If the recording has not recorded the voice, has not recorded the captions, then I would respectfully ask that we permit the speaker to re-present her five minutes of speaking because this is a public delegation and the public has a right to hear what is being said. Thank you.
Sure, I'm going to recommend we take a recess and we can confer with IT and we can get the information that you've requested and we'll come back. So we are currently at 522 and we'll come back at 5 30. and will our speaker be asked to stay trust your mom trustee ma we will we are taking a recess we're not kicking anyone out of a meeting we're not changing anything we're simply taking a recess so it is 5 22 we'll take a recess and we will come back at 5 30. um and everyone on the call is welcome to stay or not but we do need um to maintain uh quorum so i would ask that people return in eight minutes and we'll have all we'll have that information for you trusty mind for the rest of the board as well
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Just a quick recess on our part. And we did confirm that though the audio and closed captioning were not available live, we do have that available. So when we post the recording of tonight's meeting, it will include both the audio and the closed captioning. on that note. And I thank everyone for their patience while we work through IT issues. Nothing is ever perfect. And of course, we recognize all the work that goes into these meetings. So thank you. Okay. I don't see any hands up for additional questions. Okay. Trustee Ma, do you have a question for the presenter? We are back on the agenda item. Do you have anything for Megan?
Yes, I have a question of the presenter. So I noticed that your letter was sent to the Minister of Education and Child Care and also the Minister of Public Safety. Have you heard any responses from both ministries?
Trustee Mott, just clarification from the presentation. Just please, as per our policy suggests. Do you have any clarification on what was presented?
Yeah, I have a question whether or not I want to have it clarified that this letter was copied to two different ministers. And my question of clarification is whether or not there has been any response or any additions to what has been presented so far. I think that's a clarification question.
Trustee Ma, you know that's not a clarification of the presentation that was done. And I'm just going to go with it because I actually, I too would like to know, but it doesn't actually follow within our policy. But I'm going to go ahead and Megan, if you'd like to answer that question, please go ahead.
yeah uh so far we haven't gotten any response from the province um and by either of those ministers we have put a deadline i the deadline is from one month of when it was sent um that we're hoping that we get a response from them um but we will see um Yeah, so far nothing. And I'm really hoping to meet with them too because, you know, I think it's a really serious issue and they do have human rights obligations, as does this board and every single school, every single public school in Vancouver and across the province. So it should be taken seriously and I really hope that it's prioritized soon.
Are there any other clarifying questions for our presenter, Megan McDermott?
Just giving it another couple seconds.
Okay. Thank you very much for coming to present to us. Thank you for sending the letter. We all received that. I do want to give anyone final time to ask any questions. Seeing none, thank you again. We will now adjourn the meeting at 5.30 p.m. Thank you, everyone, for attending tonight.
Thank you.