Pembina Hills trustees passed a motion during their Dec. 9 meeting to hold their regular meetings at the regional office in Barrhead and livestream the proceedings via Facebook for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year.
Generally speaking, this is how Pembina Hills trustees have conducted their monthly meetings since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March.
It’s also worth noting that trustees had previously passed a motion in September to livestream their meetings for the remainder of the year.
Board chair Jennifer Tuininga said the intent of the new motion was to ensure that trustees would not be going out to any individual schools to hold meetings, as was the case before the pandemic.
“That was the idea behind it, we’re just going to stay in one place for the year,” she added.
Trustee Judy Lefebvre asked if the motion would conflict with the new provincial order requiring Albertans to work from home unless their employer requires them to be physically present. (Incidentally, that order took effect on Sunday, Dec. 13.)
Supt. Dave Garbutt said his interpretation is that the board would be affected by the order, adding that he had not seen any exemption for governing bodies of any kind.
Tuininga pointed out that the new provincial restrictions are only supposed to be in place for four weeks, and there isn’t another board meeting scheduled until Jan. 13, 2021.
But even if trustees could not gather at the regional office, she noted they had met using Google Meet in the past.
“I think the motion is still correct (because) we would still be livestreaming. We could come here if that’s possible, or we can do that via Google Meet,” Tuininga said.
