Calgary Board of Education trustee misses over one-third of school board meetings

By Jason Herring, July 5 2018 —

The president of the Calgary and District Labour Council (CDLC) is raising concerns about the attendance records of one Calgary Board of Education (CBE) trustee.

Alexander Shevalier says documents obtained through the provincial Freedom of Information Act show that Mike Bradshaw, a first-time school board trustee for Wards 12 and 14, has missed 36.6 per cent of school board meetings.

“That’s 26 out of 71 meetings he was absent for,” Shevalier said. “And [many of] the meetings he was absent for weren’t the ones held in public, they were private ones. So there was no way for us to know about his attendance records unless we asked for it.”

Bradshaw ran in the 2017 municipal election as part of the Students Count slate. Shevalier thinks the slate’s promises are at odds with Bradshaw’s attendance records, arguing that “the slate ran on a platform of accountability and transparency.”

Bradshaw could not be reached for comment by press time.

Shevalier said that nothing prompted the request for information, stating that curiosity spurred the request.

“My role is to be the voice of labour in front of city council and the school board,” he said. “My job is to see how they’re doing.”

The CBE’s website outlines the role of the Board of Trustees as “establishing expectations for organizational results and quality operational performance and then monitoring actual performance against those expectations.” CBE trustees earn a mean salary of $47,142.86 a year, according to the CBE’s compensation disclosure.