The Calgary Board of Education is coming under fire from a local education watch group for spending a lot of time meeting behind closed doors.
The Association for Responsive Trusteeship in Calgary Schools claims the CBE is meeting in camera nearly half the time.
The group is concerned that trustees are talking about things like capital projects which they say is a topic that should not be discussed in private.
ARTICS is an organization that focuses on public school board issues and encourages trustees to be transparent and accountable.
CBE Chair Pat Cochrane says stricter security is necessary after confidential information was leaked to the public.
"This year we've had some particularly sensitive issues and because we've had some breeches of confidentiality that have occurred, one of the new processes that we have to do this year is sometimes when its highly, highly sensitive, trustees actually have to read the report within the meeting. Normally we get our reports, we read them, we're ready to go when the meetings happen," said Cochrane.
Cochrane also said the CBE follows the rules of the School Act and the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to decide when it's necessary to ban the public from meetings.
