The Hanover School Board has decided it will not change policy when it comes to hiring teachers.

At a meeting last month, trustee Shayne Barkman made a motion to have at least two trustees present at all teacher interviews. It was seconded by Jeff Friesen. 

Board Chair Ron Falk explains why the motion was made. 

“I think the feeling was that, from a couple of trustees, that the trustees should maybe be more involved, more hands-on on some of those things, and the board I guess, as a larger entity, did not concur with that.” 

The motion was defeated with only Barkman, Friesen, and Lynn Barkman. The other six trustees opposed the motion. 

Shayne Barkman then moved an amendment which would remove the requirement of trustees' presence in the interviews for teachers, and instead it would simply allow the option for trustees to sit in. That amendment did not get a seconder. 

“It’s a bigger deal to change things than just simply saying, ‘we want to be more involved,’ in that we do have to change policies, if that would have passed,” Falk explains. “It would have involved quite a bit more work at ground level as well.” 

Falk says this motion was not made in response to any situation, adding that it is not common practice for school trustees to sit in on teacher interviews. 

“To my knowledge, there aren't any other school divisions in Manitoba where trustees are involved in teacher interviews,” he says. “I mean, we are a governance board and so we need to focus on governance.” 

Hanover trustees are involved with interviews at the upper senior admin levels, Falk notes. That includes principals and vice principals. 

But there was a time when board members were present at teacher interviews. 

“We used to, but we were also a lot smaller back then,” says Falk. “And it has been 13 years since we were involved with teacher interviews, and our division is a lot bigger even now than it was 13 years ago, for sure.”