The Edmonton Police Service confirmed it's investigating allegations of mischief within the Edmonton Catholic School Board.
School trustees said the investigation relates to a deleted audio recording from a board planning meeting on October 1, 2015.
An email from the former board chair, Debbie Engel said that police were contacted because two school trustees deleted a recording of the meeting.
The email said, “efforts immediately began to retrieve the deleted file. On October 2, 2015, the erased audio file was successfully retrieved using specialized software.”
However, Engel said the conversation recovered from the recording conflicted with the explanation given by the trustees at the board’s next meeting for why the recording was deleted.
Trustee Patricia Grell said she was having a private conversation with Trustee Merilyn Bergstra and didn’t realize the recorder was still on.
Grell said they tried to delete the conversation, but accidently deleted the whole recording.
“It’s a total accident and it’s been made into a big issue. It’s just silly,” said Grell to CTV Edmonton.
However Engel said the matter was reported to the Edmonton Police Service for investigation: “There appeared to be inconsistencies regarding Trustee Bergstra and Trustee Grell's intentions."
The Edmonton Catholic School Board has been garnering attention for its struggles with trying to develop a policy on sexual orientation and gender identity.
