Dismantle our school boards, ditch our trustees
Ontario’s rogue school boards are an embarrassment to the students they teach - and the parents they serve.

thestar.com
By Martin Regg Cohn
Feb. 1, 2017

Islamophobia struck a Quebec mosque this week.

But it touched the Toronto area long before - when a Markham school principal lashed out, last year, at Muslims online.

The latest massacre in Quebec brought Canadians together. But last year’s outbreak of prejudice in York Region has only pushed people apart.

Tragedy has a way of opening the heart, after the fact. Bigotry has a way of hardening the heart, in real time.

A bungled response from York’s school board, and its elected trustees, revealed not only religious discrimination but outright racism close to home. And speaks volumes about what’s wrong with our education system - systemic problems that require radical reform.

A classroom, like a place of worship, should be a sanctuary, a place of learning, fostering and welcoming. When parents learned that school principal Ghada Sadaka had posted anti-Islamic material online, they had every right to assume the school board would act forcefully, expeditiously, transparently.

Instead, they got an education in how school boards can retreat into opacity, obfuscation and obscurantism. A promised investigation into the principal’s misconduct was conducted in secret, and pointedly excluded the board’s equity expert - despite claims to the contrary.

Sadaka publicly “shared” videos on Facebook purportedly showing “Muslim takeovers” of European cities, and articles claiming refugees had “terrorist sympathies” in Canada. Belatedly apologizing for the “discriminatory” posts, the principal promised to learn “lessons” from the experience.

Give her credit for owning up to her mistakes - unlike the school board, which brings discredit upon itself by downplaying its errors. Thus compounding them.

Dismissing a black parent’s concerns about ongoing racism, York trustee Nancy Elgie used a racial slur - the N-word - in front of others. When the Star first sought comment in December, Elgie insisted, “there is no merit in the accusation.” After an investigation - and corroboration of the allegation - the veteran trustee changed her tune: “There is no excuse for what I said,” she admitted by email, acknowledging it was a “horribly unacceptable statement.”

The N-word is uttered, a complaint is falsely dismissed as having “no merit,” the trustee apologizes weeks later when caught out, yet still refuses to resign. Elgie’s suitability to serve evaporated with that slur, but by refusing to do the honourable thing - resign - she has destroyed her credibility irretrievably.

Against that backdrop of delay and dissembling, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has sent in two outside investigators to probe the board’s actions - and inaction. They will examine questions of both personal prejudice and financial probity, for it turns out that trustees at the York Region board have also been flying high - with some taking two or three trips to Finland, and jetting to the Netherlands.

Yet the York probe is hardly an isolated example of a rogue board requiring outside intervention. In 2014, the province launched an investigation into the dysfunctional Toronto District School Board, weighed down by over-reaching trustees and a director who couldn’t take direction. Toronto’s Catholic board, riven by trustee infighting and plagued by financial impropriety, was taken over by the province from 2008 to 2011, as were school boards in the Hamilton, Ottawa and Dufferin-Peel areas.

Every board’s abuses are different, each in their own way. Not every board is corrupt or incompetent. Racism isn’t rampant, but recurring episodes of prejudice and misconduct underscore how boards can’t cope with even the most elemental educational task - providing a safe and secure learning environment.

Our school boards share a common pattern: poor accountability, weak governance, excessive ambition. Most of Ontario’s 700 trustees are presumably dedicated and hard-working, but their mandate remains a mirage - with no taxing powers, nor any negotiating authority for teachers’ salaries.

Too many trustees are elected with abysmally low turnouts, because voters have no idea who they are - which is why so many incompetent incumbents cling to their seats. Too often they use school boards as stepping stones in their political careers, leaving a mess in their wake. They are part-timers just passing through, emasculated to the point of irrelevancy as they pretend to preside over unwieldy and unaccountable boards with sizable budgets.

Time to phase out their phantom jobs. And consolidate our splintered school boards under the rubric of regional authorities reporting directly to the education ministry.

That would restore a semblance of accountability to the broad electorate. And spare us the charade of perennial investigations (and provincial supervision) of rogue boards that are an embarrassment to the students they teach - and the parents they serve.