School board scrutiny mounts as funding pressures sometimes take toll: experts

A day in the life of a school trustee

VANCOUVER — Accusations of harassment in the workplace. Refusals to pass a balanced budget. The firing of entire boards.

School boards across the country have attracted attention over internal discord and for being at loggerheads with provincial governments. But some experts say what happens in school districts is just as common at other levels of government, albeit far less public.

“You see clashes between elected officials and bureaucrats all the time and at all levels,” said Gerald Galway, a professor of education at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador who also spent 16 years as a senior bureaucrat involved in the province’s education system.

“But I would suggest (it’s) much more public at the school board level than behind the closed doors in the board rooms and offices in ministries of government.”  (more...)

School board scrutiny mounts as funding pressures sometimes take toll: experts