Green trustee Janet Fraser eyes second term as Vancouver school board chair

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      Janet Fraser has topped two elections in a row for Vancouver school board.

      In the last municipal ballot on October 20 this year, the Green education trustee did even better.

      With 75,100 votes, Fraser emerged with the highest number of votes among all candidates elected to council, park board, and school board.

      “It really was quite unexpected, but, you know, very, very humbling really that that many people put their faith in me,” Fraser told the Georgia Straight by phone.

      Fraser was first elected to the board in 2014.

      Fraser is chair of the outgoing board, whose members were picked in the October 2017 by-election. It's her first term as chair of the board.

      It’s a position she wants to keep when the new board officially starts its business on Monday (November 5).

      “I would like to return. I would like to be the chair of the board for the next year,” Fraser said.

      As for the current board, Fraser is proud about the positive working relationship among the trustees.

      “One of the things I talked quite a lot about during the campaign was how well we as a board worked together,” Fraser said. “You know, we were respectful. We worked collaboratively, and I think, you know, that working together as a board enabled us to…build…good relationships with our stakeholder groups, with the partner agencies and with the provincial government.”

      Fraser was part of the board that was fired by the provincial government in 2016.

      Mike Bernier, who was B.C. education minister at the time, cited the board’s failure to pass a balanced budget for sacking the trustees.

      Bernier also mentioned allegations that certain trustees were bullying staff at the school district.

      In 2017, the district, then led by provincially-appointed trustee Diane Turner, released a report by lawyer Roslyn Goldner, which portrayed members of the previous board as having been rude and uncivil toward each other.

      “Many witnesses identified dysfunction amongst members of the current Board,” Goldner wrote. “There were reports of Trustees engaging in ‘bad behaviour’ toward one another marked by rude and uncivil conduct.”

      Goldner continued: “Some Trustees engaged in yelling, name calling and table pounding while others responded to their colleagues with eye-rolling and audible sighs. Some Trustees routinely ‘tweeted’ throughout meetings, conduct that was described by many witnesses as disruptive and disrespectful.”

      In addition to Fraser, two other Greens, Estrellita Gonzalez and Lois Chan-Pedley, were elected to the nine-member school board. Gonzalez was first elected in 2017. Chan-Pedley will be marking her first term.

       

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