Draper kicked off Halifax school board

A member of the Halifax Regional School Board has been voted off for not having a good excuse for missing several meetings.

Peggy Draper, the representative for Bedford-Fall River, missed three school board meetings in a row. According to the Education Act, if there's no reasonable excuse that member must be removed.

"Although I have not attended these three regular board meetings, it's not because I didn't want to be here," Draper said at Wednesday night's meeting.

She told the board she was either too ill to attend or out of the country on business.

A motion was presented to accept her excuses. But a tie vote resulted in the motion getting defeated.

Had board chair Wade Marshall been at the meeting, his vote would have made the difference for Draper. Marshall, who came up with the motion, was too sick to attend the meeting.

He said Draper doesn't deserve the punishment. "When you look at everything in the board that seems to be going unpunished, why punish her?"

Draper's problems with the school board go beyond absenteeism. She didn't tell the board that she declared bankruptcy in 2002, though the Education Act at the time required her to do so.

This information became public just this week.

Draper said she thinks these details may have been on the minds of the board members when they voted not to accept her excuses for missing too many meetings.

The Halifax Regional School Board has had a rocky start to the year.

Board member Doug Sparks refused to take his seat when the new seating arrangement was presented in January, prompting calls for a mediator to settle the dispute.

• FROM JAN. 12, 2006: Seating-plan spat prompts call for mediator