Under parliamentary procedures a committee meeting must have a quorum to be recognized as a valid meeting. In Regulation 464/97 Section 9 (1) the quorum for the SEAC is defined as:
“A majority of the members of a special education advisory committee is a quorum, and a vote of a majority of the members present at a meeting is necessary to bind the committee.”
In practical terms this means that the SEAC meeting can only take place if the number of SEAC voting members is equal to half of all the voting members plus one. For example, if SEAC has 16 members, including local association Members, Trustees, First Nations and Additional Members, 9 members (half of 16 = 8 plus 1) must be present for the meeting to proceed. Alternate members are only considered to be voting members when the local association representative is absent.
SEAC Motions are considered to have been approved or passed by SEAC if the majority of those present approve or support the motion and the attendance at the meeting met the required quorum for the committee. In the previous example, this means a motion can be approved by SEAC with 5 votes in favour from the 9 Members present at the meeting. This demonstrates why it is important for SEAC members, or their Alternates, to attend every meeting.