Elected school trustees are perhaps the lowest rung on the ladder of Canadian local democratic governance. Yet, for a civic-minded community of ‘do-gooders’, they seem to get into a an awful lot of hot water and often make headlines across Canada for all the wrong reasons. Some local trustees have been suspended for conflicts of interest or openly criticizing senior staff members in public; others have been found to be utterly incapable of overseeing gigantic financial operations. A few crackpots have sued their own school board over various matters. In some provinces, such as Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the Minister of Education has labelled the entire elected board “dysfunctional” and dismissed them from public office.
One leading school school board advocacy group, the Alberta School Boards Association, was so embarrassed by such matters that they went so far as to produce a giant apologia, entitled “Trustees Behaving Badly,” published in in its December 2010 newsletter. http://www.asba.ab.ca/natlegalnews/dec10/files/main_promo.html The ASBA article not only reviewed the sordid litany of school trustee misbehaviour, but also felt compelled to provide professional advice to help school boards rein in “inappropriate school trustee behaviour” and reassure “their communities and electors that someone is minding the store.”
A wayward Calgary Catholic Board trustee, Michael O’Malley, was removed from office in 2007 for various offenses, including breaches of confidentiality, costing taxpayers $750,000 in legal fees. In 2009-10, B.C.’s Langley School Board was investigated for poor financial controls, leaving taxpayers $13.5 million in the hole. More recent school board woes in Ontario have centred on a succession of conflict of interest cases, virtually engulfing the Toronto District Catholic School Board. Three long-serving Toronto public school trustees were sued for conflict of interest on the very eve of the October 2010 municipal elections.
Three times in the past five years Nova Scotia Ministers of Education have intervened — in Halifax, the Strait Region, and the South Shore — to dismiss the entire cast of elected school trustees. In each case, the Minister and Department claimed that the elected trustees had become “dysfunctional” and deserved to be dismissed from public office. Among those disposable trustees were a fair number of honest, public-spirited, and respected local citizens. Firing the trustees once, maybe, twice, possibly, but a third time —has not only rendered school boards a laughing stock, but made it patently obvious that the entire system of local education governance needs to be completely reformed if it is to survive much longer.
The real source of the “dysfunction” lies not so much with the personal deficiencies of trustees, but with the straightjacket rules constraining their actions and rendering them politically impotent. Instead of trashing publicly elected trustees, it’s high time we looked at the Education Act and the strictly limited powers and responsibilities assigned to our elected representatives.
The Nova Scotia Education Act, unlike the Municipal Government Act, entrusts real authority to the Superintendents and strictly limits the powers and duties of our elected representatives. Newly-elected school board members, flush with initial enthusiasm, quickly find themselves bound by a very restrictive code of conduct and behaviour, much like that of children in school. Individual trustees do not officially exist as policy initiators and no role whatsoever is even assigned them in representing the interests and views of their constituents. Most local municipal councillors would find such ‘class behaviour’ regulations laughable. http://gov.ns.ca/JUST/regulations/regs/edmin.htm
The Good Governance Guidelines, produced by Howard Windsor for the reconstituted Halifax School Board in August 2008, are a major source of the dysfunction. The corporate governance model adopted is rather outdated, imposing a very strict clinical, management-driven governance apparatus, separating “policy” and “operations.” The role of the elected board is limited to hiring and evaluating the Superintendent, setting annual goals and priorities, developing written policies, overseeing board finances, and fulfilling other ‘clean-up’ duties.. http://www.hrsb.ns.ca/files/Downloads/pdf/board/Governance_Discussion_Paper.pdf It is not a true model of “shared leadership” nor does it encourage any of what Harvard governance expert Richard Chait would term “generative thinking” and shared decision-making.
Two years later, Nova Scotia further tightened the reins and became the first province in Canada to introduce legislation to discipline individual trustees. Since 2010, an Oath of Office (Schedule C) and Code of Ethics (Schedule D) has been added to the provincial regulations. Stricter governance guidelines have been a total bust, leaving elected trustees with far less to do and much more to complain about in the performance of their critical democratic role
Elected municipal councils, under the Nova Scotia Municipal Act, are granted “broad authority” and the province “respects their right to govern municipalities in whatever ways the councils consider appropriate” within their area of jurisdiction. During the Municipal training sessions after the 2008 elections, newly –elected councillors were properly introduced to their representative roles and further assured that their powers were broadly defined and “not narrowly and with undue strictness.”
Devaluing the elected boards, labelling trustees dysfunctional, and subjecting them to a public flogging is no way to strengthen the democratic basis of our public education system. Appointing another retired provincial bureaucrat to represent the concerns of local communities is a further slap in the face.
Without elected school boards, there is no real public accountability or transparency in the Primary to Grade 12 education system. Reforming local education governance should start with the Education Act and regulations – and focus on clarifying and strengthening the democratic powers of our local, elected representatives. In December 2009, Ontario at least recognized the problem and made an effort to improve school board effectiveness. http://news.ontario.ca/edu/en/2009/12/school-board-governance-in-ontario-1.html Only when this issue is fully addressed in all provinces can we insist that elected trustees hold the administration accountable for improving quality and standards.
Give elected trustees the right to speak up on behalf of their school communities at the Board instead of simply being the Board’s salesperson in the community. Unless and until elected trustees are simply given a more meaningful role and recognized as legitimate democratic representatives, you can expect recurrent governance crises in the future and more calls for abolishing all school boards.
Why do curious, independently-minded elected school trustees so often find themselves in hot water with senior administration and the provincial ministries? What explains their tendency to go “rogue” or “dysfunctional”? Would reforming the Education Act sections defining and limiting their roles make any real difference?
I was a trustee for 6 years on the TBE (now TDSB) and the Metro TDSB the ‘overseer’ board of the time.
We had full taxing power, almost fully curriculum power, provincial guidelines were ‘light’, full personell and collective bargaining power, the budget of the board was bigger than the entire city council and the portion of taxes 55% was higher than all other city services combined.
Our board fell into the hands of a left leaning mainly NDP group for a few reasons, of 11 wards, 7-8 elected the NDP to other levels, and the only real rival for power, the Liberals lost half their usual voters to the catholic system.
For a decade we raised taxes and provided a “Cadillac” system. Almost all of the taxes fell on the downtown commercial and business class so homeowners were spared. Soon the close in suburbs began to demand “what Toronto has” from their boards in Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke etc. The provincial Tories became alarmed at this development but could see only one way out since they did not intend a “Cadillac” system to gradually spread province wide.
First came “pooling” where some Toronto and Ottawa taxes were spread to other boards. Next Harris removed education property taxes from boards 100% and “downloaded” other responsibilities on the cities to balance this. The loss of taxing power virtually destroyed local board power in Ontario.
Next, curriculum became highly prescriptive at the provincial level. Now the federation essentially negotiate with the province over the size of the annual grant and then negotiate with the boards about their share. We are one tiny step from province wide bargaining.
At the end of this process, board bureaucrats lobbied the province to pass conduct rules that “all trustees” must support board decisions even if they voted against them spoke against them in public but lost. This final “gag order” put one of the final nails in the trustees coffin.
We are now in a absurd position where powerless trustees catch flack for provincial decisions they did not have any hand in.
IMHO there are only 2 realistic ways forward:
1) Restore ALL, every single bit of power over local education to the local boards. This means total control over taxes, curriculum, personel, pedagogy, collective bargaining, the works. There would be no appeals to the province. The province would lose the right to put boards under trusteeship etc. Boards would be the “city councils of education” their pay would be permanently defined to be “the same as city council” and they would be expected to work full time.
2) Abolish the boards, use regional offices of the MOE to hear complains but place all power AND RESPONSIBILITY on the MPPs (MLAs in some provinces) but they need to be prepared to meet constituents over class placement “my child would be better in Ms Smiths class not Mr Brown’s class, every IPRC appeal, every bullying complaint, every assessment argument…..
Provincial politicians can’t be allowed to have it both ways. Make all the important rules and absolve themselves of all consequences.
For the record, I choose #1.
Part 1 of 3
In the ABSA legal newsletter, legally speaking – “In short, a director (trustee) must be concerned first and foremost with the interest of the corporation; A school board trustee’s duties are to the board. His/her fiduciary duties are owed to the school board (not to themselves, their family or friends) which is, in turn, accountable to the ratepayers. A school board trustee cannot sabotage and undermine the school board which s/he was elected to serve. Nor can a trustee do anything s/he wants. A trustee must follow the rules of procedure, codes of conduct and the majority rule of the school board on which s/he serves.”
http://www.asba.ab.ca/natlegalnews/dec10/files/main_promo.html
Trustees are elected to serve the school board, and not as representatives for the public that elect them. And much energy and expense has gone into elections, to increase voter turnout. Perhaps, the voters that do not vote, has all ready figure it out, that it is a waste of time and effort on their part. to participate in a vote in where trustees represents the school board and their goals.
In short trustees fiduciary duties, as define here, ” A legal obligation of one party to act in the best interest of another. The obligated party is typically a fiduciary, that is, someone entrusted with the care of money or property. Also called fiduciary obligation.”
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/fiduciary-duty.html#ixzz1k70kKe1N
What is all the noise about trustees promises at election, and all the noise at board meetings, that they are working for the best interests of the students? Window dressing? Perhaps, but what divides school board trustees as well as school board staff, is the fiduciary duties, and the resulting conflicts between trustees and the school board director. From what I have read, the reform and changes made to the school trustees, clearly demonstrates that the fiduciary duties of a trustees are shaping and ensuring a governance model, where trustees act in the best interest of the school board. In Alberta, and there is many other examples across Canada, ” Cochrane said in the television interview that trustees adhere to the requirements of the School Act and the province’s freedom of information and privacy legislation in deciding when it’s necessary to ban the public from its boardroom.
She declined a request from the Herald to expand and clarify her remarks about the confidentiality breaches, and she did not respond to written questions about the number of leaks that have occurred.
Leach said he is concerned by Cochrane’s suggestion that board members can’t be counted to fulfill their fiduciary duty to keep information confidential.”
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/education/Public+school+board+takes+steps+protect+highly+sensitive+reports/5839286/story.html#ixzz1k78aSGHH
Read the comments on the above link, and the public is not amuse. Close meetings is a common feature of the newly reformed governance models for trustees, from everything to A to Z in the public education system. Remember the school board trustees must act with the best interests of the school board.
In the ASBA newsletter, the judge states, “A school board trustee is a fiduciary.
A school board trustee cannot do whatever h/se wants, when h/she wants and how h/she wants, without regard to his/her colleagues or his/her fiduciary duties. A trustee must act with the utmost good faith and maintain integrity in public office; a trustee must first and foremost be concerned with the interests of the school board. A school board’s code of conduct may set out the high standards which school board members are expected to meet.”
Further down in the ASBA newsletter, “Debate is welcome and may be vigorous at the board table.
While trustees need not be of like mind and may hold strong and conflicting views and may debate……… However, trustees do have one overarching responsibility – a shared public duty to advance the work of the school board to which they had the privilege of being elected .”
Part 2
The second conflict, next to fiduciary duties is, outlined again in the ASBA legal newsletter.
“Boards should appreciate the difference in the roles between an elected official and school jurisdiction employees. Boards should require senior management to provide it with sufficient, appropriate and regular information. The information should be strategic and not operational in nature, and be balanced with the jurisdiction’s resourcing to provide the information. Regardless of any trust issues, management must provide information to the board. A board cannot receive information from senior management that is not accurate and reliable. Boards must have a proper balance between the board holding management accountable in a respectful and professional manner and supporting senior management in moving forward. This includes: respectful treatment of the superintendent
and staff both in camera and in public commitment from the board to move forward together with fellow trustees and with senior management on common goals assurance that all trustees are acting in good faith with the superintendent “
http://www.asba.ab.ca/natlegalnews/dec10/files/main_promo.html
Information and the type of information. Note information should be strategic and not operational in nature, are key words. What is strategic information? I had to look it up, and it appears that many other have done so in the past. Strategic information, is really strategic management. In the Wikipedia, “Strategic management provides overall direction to the enterprise and is closely related to the field of Organization Studies. In the field of business administration it is useful to talk about “strategic alignment” between the organization and its environment or “strategic consistency.” According to Arieu (2007), “there is strategic consistency when the actions of an organization are consistent with the expectations of management, and these in turn are with the market and the context.” Strategic management includes not only the management team but can also include the Board of Directors and other stakeholders of the organization. It depends on the organizational structure.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_management
In essense, the school board trustees functions as carrying out the strategic plans of the school board as well as the overarching goals of the education ministries. “The strategic plan is about setting a direction for the organisation, devising goals and objectives and identifying a range of strategies to pursue so that the organisation might achieve its goals. It is a general guide for the management of the organisation according to the priorities and goals of stakeholders. The strategic plan does NOT stipulate the day-to-day tasks and activities involved in running the organisation.” http://www.leoisaac.com/operations/top025.htm
Operational information, are the day to day activities of the school board, and the detailed tasks needed to carry out the operations and day-to-day running of a school board and its schools. Conflicts galore, and the public seeing trustees as rubber-stamping the crazy ideas of the educrats found inside the school boards. Bullying, SE programs and other such programs, are more or less rubber-stamp by trustees, because most the information that they do have to make a decision rests on strategic information, and only the operational information that the school board staff deems necessary. The trustees formed their decisions, based on the overarching goals of the school board, within the legal meaning of fiduciary duties. Part of the fiduciary duties that a trustee has is to work for the best interests of the school board, and work in partnership with the school board staff to be the main provider of information, expect the information to be trustworthy, as well as accepting that the operational information is not a given or a requirement for a trustee to fulfill their duties. Most of the conflicts with trustees, parents, schools, and the school board staff is on operational information. For parents, it represents almost all of the conflict between parents concerning schools and the school board.
Part 3
“ Ross Virgo, spokesperson for the York Region District School Board, said trustees are free to speak to anyone they wish. But the advice given was “to avoid situations in which trustees may feel compelled to support parent positions on specific incidents or operational matters without the benefit of a staff member to provide information and context.” “Trustees regularly have private conversations with parents about all kinds of matters related to public education,” he also said. “Staff advice is to refer matters that relate to day-to-day school operations or specific student incidents to school or board staff for response.” http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/959686–york-trustees-advised-against-private-meetings-with-parents-on-school-issues
At the end of the article, “Virgo said the board wanted to clarify for trustees “that staff are always available to accompany them and participate with them” on parent complaints.
“We have attempted to ensure that trustees are not unnecessarily put into a position of being forced to make decisions about issues that are really within professional purview of staff.”
Key words is professional purview of staff, and trustees under the new reforms have been taken to task, fired, dismissed for interfering in operational activities of the day to day kind. Trustees are for the most part are useful for becoming the henchmen of the school board and its goals, as well as ensuring parents will follow the protocols set out by the school board to mediate problems, that are for the most part operational in nature.
To the questions that Paul poses, “ Why do curious, independently-minded elected school trustees so often find themselves in hot water with senior administration and the provincial ministries? What explains their tendency to go “rogue” or “dysfunctional”? Would reforming the Education Act sections defining and limiting their roles make any real difference? “
The first two, fiduciary duties and operational management information, but the third question is moot. Why bother to limit their roles, when their roles are under severe restrictions, by the major stakeholders within the education system, and accountability rests with the major stakeholders. Trustees are accountable to the school board and the education ministry, and have no accountability to the public, the students and the parents. Another way of looking at it, the trustees are accountable to the shareholders within the education system, and students/parents/communities are the customers. After all, a school trustee is a creation of the government, and represents one of the accountability measures of a public education system. A school trustee board is the vehicle to allow and spread accountability throughout the education system, to where no one part carries the burden of undue accountability or to be held to account by the public with serious consequences.
One of the huge disconnects on school boards has always been the tension between bureaucratic decisions and political decisions.
That’s because most trustees don’t understand what their governance role is as a board. It usually is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
There are disconnections Doug, but the only method left to the school trustees is the political route. Using politics to obtain things beyond the strategic goals of the school board. For most boards it is achievement of students, and the use of the standardized testing such as EQAO, to measure the achievement, as well as the accountability measure to the public.
However Doug, what the boards care more of, is the set percentage of student achieving a 2 or a 3 or above, and not the quality and/or how well verse the students are in the foundation of the 3 Rs. There is no emphasis on how many are just sitting in the pass rate, and how many just below the pass rate. What is focus on is the overall pass rate of the students, All other focus remains with the board staff and other stakeholders within the system to decide on what will be and will not be the resources and remediation help for students.
Trustees have little say, except using the political route to improve overall academics of the students. The education system works only to obtain 100 percent of their students achieving a 50 percent average, and they do not care about why groups of students with like characteristics are achieving consistently low achievement. The educrats uses the characteristics as their excuses to avoid the hard work of remediation, the expense, and as well, if the students are passing with a 50 percent or more, there is no need for remediation.
It is left up to the schools to sort out, and trustees can do little to improve the situation, when the school board and the other major stakeholders refuses to take responsibility and provide effective resources and remediation for schools.
It is not their job, nor the job of the school board staff. It is always someone else’s job, and that somebody is the invisible elephants that take pity on students. The Moore case that the Supreme Court of Canada is hearing, is an example of an invisible elephant, and as well as an example of ‘not my job’ or ‘not our responsibility’ that is quite common, where the legal fiduciary duty, is to provide a basic education, but quality can be ignored. .
Elected school boards deserve to be called to account when they go into hiding from the public and shift into “retreat mode” talking mostly to themselves and the upper echelons of senior administration. When that happens, citizens have to speak up in favour of restoring effective democratic governance.
My recent OpenFile Halifax commentary, 20 December 2011, “Talking Heads and Closed Doors,” ( http://halifax.openfile.ca/halifax/text/commentary-halifax-regional-school-boards-talking-heads-and-closed-doors ) took the Halifax Board to task for retreating behind closed doors after the Ken Fells Takedown Video fiasco and relocating their HQ to a Dartmouth corporate park:
“School boards are perhaps the lowest rung on the ladder of Halifax’s local governance system and much that happens at the Halifax Regional School Board, aside from the regular monthly board meetings, escapes close public scrutiny. Even the Chronicle-Herald’s How are We Governed? series has paid scant attention to HRM’s publicly-elected school board responsible for guiding the system of 137 schools, educating 50,000 students, and consuming more than $399 million per year, or over one-third of the provincial education budget.
A close look at HRSB, not unlike Halifax Regional Council, shows the clear trend is to more closed door meetings and tighter control over the information openly shared at the board table with public school parents and ratepayers.
Since the Halifax Regional School Board moved its headquarters to Burnside a year ago, the nine-person elected Board of Trustees, headed by Chair Irvine Carvery, has held a record number of closed-door meetings, known as “leadership sessions” and adopted new governance rules which removed the term “elected board” from its operating by-laws.
From September 2011 until the present, the HRSB has only held four Board meetings open to the public and the media, on September 28, October 26, November 30, and December 14, 2011. From June until the end of September 2011, a four-month period, no public Board meetings were held and governance changes were recently approved to eliminate the previous once-monthly public meetings for the Finance and Policy Planning committees.
A year ago, over the same September to December period, the HRSB held four separate public Board meetings and eight separate public meetings to oversee the board’s finances and to chart its policy direction. Monthly ‘double-header’ public standing committee meetings totalling over 13 hours have been replaced by in-camera “leadership sessions” where the trustees meet exclusively with the superintendent and a multitude of senior staff. No agendas are posted and recorded minutes are not released until a month after the actual session.
Public school boards supposedly exist to give the public a voice in education. Our representatives at the table are the elected members of the local school board, or so the theory goes. Yet the current CEO, Superintendent Carole Olsen, exerts a powerful, behind-the-scenes influence, especially since her contract was renewed for three more years back in 2010. The current nine-member elected Halifax Board is certainly a nice, decent group of people. But what kind of influence do our representatives actually exert in shaping the direction of the system?
Since the protracted and messy “Ken Fells Takedown Crisis” from March to June 2010, the Halifax Board has undergone a few subtle but important changes in its operations. Chair Irvine Carvery is now the public face of the HRSB, handling most, if not all, of the public inquiries.
Since the hiring of Dr. James Gunn as in-house consultant in September 2010, the Board has also adopted a corporate governance model, changing its name to “governing board” and holding monthly “leadership sessions” running up to three hours each and used to “in-service” the elected trustees.
Mission critical issues and sensitive public matters now dominate the private leadership sessions. Hiring Dr. Gunn as a consultant and awarding a French immersion study contract (to Gunn’s Leadership Consulting Services) were are discussed on September 8, 2010 with him present at the sparsely attended meeting. Among the public policies vetted in private were those dealing with snow days, a Kids & Learning paper, and the 21st Century Learning initiative. Any and all costs associated with renaming Cornwallis Junior High were also discussed behind closed doors.
Seeds sown five years ago
A widely-publicized HRSB “trustee crisis” in late 2005 marked by intense infighting led to the dismissal of the entire elected board and the installation of senior administrator Howard Windsor as a “one-man board.” An elected board of trustees was restored in time for the 2008 municipal elections. In October of 2008, nine new “keener” trustees were elected, but the voter turnout on election day was only a paltry 25.14 percent.
Firing the school board, it now appears, has exerted a lasting impact upon public accountability and democratic control over the system. While the Halifax School Board was reconstituted as an elected body, the new governance structure introduced reverted to a traditional policy-advisory model, effectively reducing the authority and representational role of trustees.
Under that 2008 governance model, developed in close collaboration with the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, the role and responsibilities of trustees were very narrowly circumscribed and reduced to “duties.”
Aimed at reigning-in “a dysfunctional board” and teaching proper “table manners,” the assigned duties were, in my estimation, more suitable for a high school cheerleading squad.
When asked in February 2010 who at the HRSB was now entrusted with giving voice to public concerns, the chair of the Chamber’s Education Committee Cheryl Hodder offered a succinct explanation. “We were facing a crisis at the time,” she responded, “so that wasn’t a priority.”
Local education democracy at the Halifax Board, storm damaged in 2005-06, is now withering on the vine. The HRSB now meets only once a month in public session—less than half as often as it did in 2008. Pre-scheduled presentations by concerned citizens and groups are restricted to regular monthly board meetings. Few brave souls now trek out to Burnside to propose policy changes or to give presentations, unless their schools are facing possible closure.
The elected Halifax Board is now languishing in educational retreat mode. With Nova Scotia school boards coming under increasing fire, the “elected board” needs a wake-up call. Time is running out to reverse the trend and save a system of local democratic governance currently at severe risk.”
Comment:
It’s up to us to ensure that elected boards are open, democratic, transparent, and consultative in their governance practices. If they go astray, do not be afraid to call them on the matter.
I agree.
The education act in Nova Scotia constitutes feduciary duties by individual trustees and school boards (action) that are obsequious to the objectives of educrats, regional superintendents and the MOE; not the constituents who elected the trustees in the first place. This is why they (school boards) hide behind closed doors and avoid the democracy of transparency demanded by the public (reaction).
Perhaps most constituents now know the chain of command and are way to casual about voting as a result of “the wall”.
Th education act needs reforming if the public is to be once again engaged in a democracy of public education. The question is how will this objective be inculcated?
That’s because most trustees don’t understand what their governance role is as a board. It usually is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Who is the boss and final decision maker? It should be the trustees as it is with city council, the province and Ottawa.
The staff believe this is not the case.
I agree with you. Like I said, the tail wags the dog. Staff need to be reminded of who’s the boss from time to time.
As the school trustee boards became less democratic, the vertical structure of the education system, flattens out to a near horizontal line that is almost straight.
Imagine a straight line with a very gentle upward slope of no consequence, and the stakeholders on the line. At the one polar end, are scattered dots that represent the parents as individuals, the majority are below the line, with a minority above the line. The dots above the line, represent parents who have gathered enough social status deemed by the stakeholders within the education system, to have more influence in their children’s education than the parents below the line. The social status of parents is more important, and what Kidder rails about parents having the know-how to get what they want for their children’s education.
The next set of scattered dots are the students, with the majority below the line, and a minority of students above the line who are receiving something extra over and above the average education.The parents and students dots are very close to each other.
Further up the line, are the stakeholders sitting on the line, like ugly squares, triangles and circles , weighing down the line to get it more or less horizontal. Hence the controls, rules, regulations according to weight. The heavy weight is the education ministry at the opposite polar end, that has the ultimate authority and power to rule the roost of the stakeholders on the line. The stakeholders sitting on the line, and are adjacent to each other, work together, share common goals and within their duties and responsibilities under the school acts, other education laws as well as carrying out their purpose to spread accountability thinly on the line, and download accountability to the scattered dots, throughout the system, that represent society.
Moving away from the scattered dots of the students, the first two shapes are the school councils and the schools, adjacent to each other. Sitting at the mid-way point between the students and the next set of adjacent shapes the school trustees and the school board, that sits at the center of the line. The school board is the heavy weight of authority, responsibilities and enjoys relationships with all the players, up and down in various degrees. and has their fingers on the pulse of the scattered dots. Above the school board, the shapes sitting close to the ministry of education at the opposite polar end, is the department of education, the teachers’ faculties, and the education research centres, such as the EQAO.
As the line flattens, accountability can be spread out throughout the education system, and set the conditions for the completing agendas and best interests within the players sitting on the line takes place, with the ministry of education ruling the roost, if one of the players decides to change the rules. The trustee boards in the last 20 years or so, have been stripped of their power, authority and more or less which has lead to a total break of the connection between the parents, communities, and taxpayers that dwell below the line in scattered dots at one of the polar ends. The scattered dots above the line, are the dots that the school trustees connect to most often, and the dots that the major players sitting on the line are most concern with, because they may represent a threat to the authority and imposing accountability measures that demands higher measures over and above the minimum legal requirement of a basic education.
The trustee board is the weakest link on the line, because they have been elected by the people, and as in all of the democracies, the trustees represents the communities and individuals, speaking on their behalf to the major stakeholders that sit on the line. However, due to protocol processes that restricts how and by whom the individual parents and students approaches trustees. The protocol processes have severed the direct connection between the trustees and the scattered dots of the trustees constituency, for all the dots that fall below the line, to where trustees only connection to their constituency, are the dots above the line, the schools and the school councils. The points between the school boards to the education of ministry, are now able to control the agendas and interests of the individual parents, students, the communities and the trustee board to follow the goals, agendas and best interests of those sitting on the line at the school board or above.
The union is not part of the same line, and their line sits above the line where all of the stakeholders sit on. The union has the ability to used their influence and the advantage to have their fingers at every junction at the line below them, to work for their best interests and as well as using their power to influence for the good of the students and the communities. If only parents would have such influence, and is probably the reason why parent unions have been developed in the United States, to gather up the scattered dots, into larger , fewer dots to wield influence in the education system.
Lastly, there is a series of scattered dots between the points of the school board to the ministry of education, that represent the private sector who provides education resources, materials and supplies for the major stakeholders sitting on the line. Eager to please, and willing to bend to whatever the direction and goals of the stakeholders are, and as well as the agendas and interests of those within the education system.
As Paul, Steven and Doug has pointed out, it is up to us to ensure that school trustee boards follows the democratic principles as well as representing the best interests of their constituencies. How, is the sixty-four dollar question, but more importantly the school trustee board may be the only option left to transformed a public education system to everyone working for the best interests of students and their education. As well as having the stakeholders sitting on the line, in their various shapes and sizes to come together sitting on the line, where the scattered dots of students, parents, communities and taxpayers are scattered below and above the line. Accountability will no longer be spread out, nor will the major stakeholders sitting on the line, be able to avoid being held to account on poor education policies, that produces negative final outcomes for students in the basic education that is legally required in the provincial school acts.
The Ontario Handbook for school trustees.
Click to access GoodGovernance.pdf
The first few words, ‘Education that connects : Global achievement with Local accountability” . Whenever one sees the word global with accountability, in education documents, become very wary about the rest of the document.
Strategic planning, and other such words connected to strategic planning, but not a word on the differences between strategic planning and operational planning. The word operational is absent, as well as the words . fiduciary duties.
A few raised eyebrows, on trustees relationships and parents. “While school
boards are primarily engaged in the provision of education services, they do so with regard for the promotion of student well-being. The board sets policies that guide the actions of administration and school staff in their dealings with students and their families. In this regard, issues such as student safety, student discipline, food services, attendance, matters related to health, and student transportation are significant matters for the attention of school board members.”
Key words are provision and well-being, as well as the emphasis and stress place on what trustees and the activities that trustees should be concern about. Operational considerations such as schools receiving low achievement on the EQAO, is not their concern. In effect the trustees, as well as the parent councils have no say and influence in operational matters, that includes poor curriculum and instruction methods. Just like the current myopic focus on the mental health of students, where children who struggled in the foundation of the 3 Rs, as seen as having mental health problems, rather than the current literacy curriculum and instruction methods. and practices that is the culprit when children struggled early on with the 3 Rs.
Another paper that I keep bumping into it, is called “Teacher Unions, school districts, universities, governments: Time to tango and promote convergence?”
Concluding remarks: “As a society we depend too much in educational debate on a discourse which purports to be civil but which is constantly confrontational and ideological. We need to understand more about the exercise of power, and consider some alternative approaches to the use of power, especially forms of devolution which are acceptable to all stakeholders and which better meet all students’ needs. We need more collective efforts to make things possible and workable for teachers, which in turn supports the learning of students. We need to build more rapprochements with parents who want the best for their children. We need to add a touch more whimsy and have a lot more fun. Idealism is not naive if we find pragmatic ways to get the best from the human resources we have. Education is all about relationships, and as organizations we have collectively failed this most basic of educative lessons. Building better organizational relationships might be a precursor to or a result of building convergence, but improved relationships are crucial to building more areas of convergence. Convergence reflects a greater focus and emphasis on idealism, a more genuine desire to make education work for students with less individual or organizational aggrandizement but, and perhaps contradictorily, greater recognition of organizational needs, and of valid and universal vested interests .
It’s time to tango and promote convergence. Does anyone want to dance?”
http://www.ucalgary.ca/iejll/vol11/naylor
Something to think about, other than the current model of trusteeship that works only for the best interests of the school board staff. All others below, the parents, students and taxpayers are at the mercy of the agendas, special interests and their goals within the system that attacks and belittles the parents’ vested interests as well as tending to the best needs and interests of their children.
As long as trustees violate their public trust without having to suffer the consequences (as in criminal charges, fine, jail time, etc) the problems will continue.
Those are the very same problems that occur at all levels of elected “officialdom” and those issues continue for the same reasons.
Perhaps the time has come when trustees are full-time elected officials. Reduce the number of trustees, increase their decision-making powers and responsibilities and hold them accountable. If they breach the public trust, nail them.
The recent Deloitte report was interesting because it gave a resounding clean bill of health to the “staff” of the South Shore Regional School Board, while the elected school board was vilified (to hold cheap) for breaching the good conduct and ethics of the education act. Te and crumpetgate.
In my opinion this school board went rogue because it held the respective communities and their integral educational protection – in their best interest. This was anethema to the objectives of the staff and the staff reports which advocated a full scale review of approximately 40% of the regions schools, invairably leading to significant closures.
Was this an act of civil disobedience by the board? If the act cannot be reformed, and new measures “not be allowed” to be put in place to stimulate rural educational sustainability, will it not stand to reason that staff endorsements of school closures will continue to not only highlight the out dated tenents of the educational act, but also the integrity of school boards as they rebel?
If school boards continue to challenge the MOE and the Act, and more firings occur due to the gulf between staff and boards, school board members may half to call for a review of the act on behalf of constituents at some time in the future. I can only imagine the response from the Nova Scotia School Board Association on this idea.
A review of the act would also indirectly mean a public review of staff responsibilities…
It was not in Deloitte’s mandate to investigate the effectiveness of staff and MOE policies so they probably didn’t bother looking.
But it was in this respect to the Delotte passage under organization and resources: “Is the Board able to rely on the superintendent and staff for adequate information and support?”
Measuring the integrity of staff information will continue to plague school trustees since governance practices limit their (the board’s) scope.
Deloitte was not hired to evaluate policies which, IMO, is the major problem in public education. They were also not hired to assess whether the MOE’s own policies were followed.
It is clear that the MOE does not follow its own policies. The policy of inclusion, for example, stipulates that there will be adequate classroom resources. Those resources aren’t there and have never been there due to the cost of having umpteen EAs. Nonetheless, that is the policy even though it is not implemented.
Deloitte was hired to review the South Shore Regional School Board. This did not stop them from asking governance questions related to staff information and required support for the board.
“But it was in this respect to the Delotte passage under organization and resources: “Is the Board able to rely on the superintendent and staff for adequate information and support?”
Key to understanding the restrictions being place on the trustees via through the reliability of information as well as the quality of information for making informed decisions.
Current example is the North York school board, and the closing down of the elementary Arts school. The new wrinkle is now presenting an image of trustees thinking they know more about education than the senior staff at the board.
“So to scrap a program that engages children passionate about the arts seems like an example of trustees “thinking they know more about education than their senior staff,” noted Crothers — a practice he said he had seen in neighbouring Toronto and North York.
“Rather than encourage their staff to be innovative and progressive, trustees (in those areas) started to ‘instruct’ their staff how to go about educating students,” said Crothers, who has a sports-focussed high school named after him.”
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/1120070–former-york-region-school-chair-slams-bid-to-close-specialized-arts-program
The previous Toronto Star article, also states school trustees, and not as in the other news media, that does not separate the school board into two parts.
“The York Region District School Board will consider whether to ban all elementary level optional programs besides French immersion. That would mean Baythorn Public School, the sole school with such a program, would have to cancel its specialized arts stream, affecting more than half the school’s 500 students.”
http://www.financialpost.com/related/topics/York+Region+school+special+programs/5970709/story.html
If one read all the articles across all media, the reader will arrived at the conclusion, the idea as well as the policies originated from the board staff, and not from the trustees.
“Rather than a bouquet of specialized programs, this policy is intended to bring equity of access, consistency and inclusiveness to all schools,” noted Virgo, citing a philosophy that elementary schools should give children a broad academic foundation and let specialization begin in high school.”
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/news/gta/article/1112323–beloved-school-arts-program-could-close-over-equity
Virgo, is the board’s communication officer for all parts of the board, and not just to speak on the behalf of the school trustees. The board staff wants the school to be shut down, because the Arts school no longer represent the current philosophy in of the school board staff, concerning operations. But the Arts school is a fine representation of strategic goals of the school board, as well as the current philosophy underpinnings of strategic goals for the school board trustees,
Thus, the war has begun, making the trustees a scapegoat, rather than the root problem which is governance and the policies associated with governance.
“I’m worried we don’t have enough evidence to support certain requests”
Judith Sullivan- Corney
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/55306-decisions-fired-school-board-could-affect-funding
And what might those “wish list” requests be? Remember those?
Someone hasn’t been doing their homework so …like the dog ate it?
No wonder trustees can’t get information in a timely manner. They should have all just quit.
Steven, the identical forces are at play, as in the North York School Board. The SSRSB staff as well as the one appointed trustee is presenting an image that the trustees are in charge, and in command of all things education. Lets blame the trustees, because we have hide the fact that the board staff did not do its work in the first place, and the very ones who are in control of all information and data that is generated. Trustees are essentially volunteers, and elected volunteers, and perhaps they should come with full salaries, the authority and the accountability, to turned the pseudo-images of trustees crafted by the other stakeholders within the education system, into reality.
Than perhaps the words “School closure is not a foregone conclusion, she said”, will be the truth. As it stands now, schools slated for closure by the board’s staff, is made in advance, leaving the trustees holding the bag in a rigged process, where there is little chance of overturning closures, done in advance and in secret by the school board’s staff.
“Children in rural communities are entitled to the same quality of education as children in larger centres, Corbett said.
The Education Department looks at the wrong factors when deciding a school’s fate because it measures if a school properly uses all its space instead of looking at the quality of education and added benefits for the community, he said.”
School board staff, the education ministries don’t want to hear quality of education, when it comes to rural schools and communities. It is based on the unequal, unfair equity philosophies that pretends every student has equal needs, equal resources and equal costs. The present equity policies represents the right to discriminate between the sub-populations and withing the individual sub-populations of students, communities and taxpayers.
The very structure of the school board, and its governance allows accountability to spread wide, so no one stakeholder within the education system is holding the bag. The exception is the trustees boards, who is left holding the bag, on a set of strategic goals without having the authority to ensure the strategic goals are being followed by the other stakeholders within, who are gatekeepers of the operational information of the education system, and as well have the authority what type of operational information will be release to the trustees and the general public. The current governance allows discrimination to take place across the education system and the strategic goals and information masks the discrimination.
Hard to detect using normal methods, but very easy to detect if one follows quality of education measures. The reason is the education structure is designed to look after the best interests and agendas of the stakeholders within, and it results in discrimination of the sub-populations of the students, the taxpayers, the communities, and other external groups. Discrimination is found at all levels of the public education system, and the majority of the discrimination at play is the quality of education. An example of it, and is displayed in all its glory of ongoing discrimination is the education quality of the identified sub-group, the LD population for the last 20 years. Another example in the last 15 years, that shows discrimination in all its glory, is the quality of rural and urban education. I don’t need to know for sure that school closures are made in advance, the final outcomes in the data streams are telling me that they are made in advance by the school board staff, as well as the restrictions at play regarding the trustees boards. Very much like the stats of the LD population, and the poor outcomes of their 12 years of schooling in a public education setting, compared to the stats of the LD population, the good outcomes when LD students received the remediation in the 3 Rs outside of the public education system.
Quality of education is one topic that the educrats do not want to talk about, nor the restrictions that are at play, to prevent improvement on quality of education measures. That would mean, the agendas and interests within would become secondary to the needs of the students, taxpayers and communities.
Forces is correct Nancy. This is just crude politics at its worst. This is the kind of strategy that develops around a pool table. The staff has all the current info they need on schools in the south shore region.
In my opinion, the only ones behind the “eight ball” would be the small community schools in the DOE’s cross hairs.
I have this image Steven, of the educrats standing around the pool table planning their strategies with cigars hanging out of their mouths, chasing out the people and the issues who are choking on the smoke. Rural schools is one of the issues that is being choke out by the smoke.
A CBC article and the tale of doing away with elected school trustees.
Read the comments, and the conclusion is, the public is not amuse, nor being fooled by the actions of the stakeholders within the provincial public education system.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/01/11/nb-education-carr-reform-1009.html
Educational dialogue is a fickle thing. Perhaps it is just me Nancy, but with respect to issues pertaining to school boards, trustees and governance, and the variety of educational roles involving public policy and program delivery, many are conspicuous by their absense – that is unless it comes in the form of a press release. Protecting their turf I suppose.
The educrats have taken the “public” out of public education.
School Trustee Misbehaviour: What’s the Source of the Dysfunction?
______________________________________________________
Other than the cases of conflicts of interest, ethical issues and such, is it the trustees who are dysfunctional or is it the public education system and structure?
I suspect that it is the latter and I also strongly suspect that the cause of that dysfunction is that they are too far removed from the actual users (students).
Rub-a-dub-dub, three educrats in a tub. This video shows the newly minted South Shore Regional School Board (Judith Sullivan Corney- centre) and
her reader’s digest version of governance for a forthcoming school identification review list.
A sterling example of the educratic era of shared decision making. Not much in the way here of speaking for school communities.
Is this the way of the future?
http://www.southshorenow.ca/newsnowclips/play.php?vid=1652
And, of course, there are the ever-present bobble-heads smiling and nodding away.
Below an example of the free wheeling creative accounting, and abuse of the public purse – a school board – note not the trustees.
“An unnamed school in western Newfoundland charged liquor, personal cellphones, computers and even a wicker chair set to the regional school board, although subsequent audits could never locate the items.”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/01/26/nl-school-spending-police-west-126.html
A link is provided for the auditor’s report. on the CBC page.
Click to access AR2011.pdf
Starts at page 44.
There’s part of the problem. All the wrongdoers remain employed and remain “unnamed”.
Aiding and abeting, anyone?
School trustees in Halifax have just been taught another lesson in good governance.
Earlier this week, the elected HRSB trustees were advised that the “secret meetings” by-laws (approved 28 September 2011) had been vetoed by the Minister of Education.
Here’s how Education Minister Ramona Jennex gave them the bad news: “Department staff have encouraged the school board to explore alternatives to their proposed approach which would reduce the duplication of effort between the school board and committees of the board while maintaining the necessary transparency in conducting the work of the elected school board.”
A public-spirited HRM citizen filed a formal complaint, claiming that suspending the public meetings contravened the NS Education Act. A small victory for the public voice in education!
The Nova Scotia School Board system is finally attracting some closer scrutiny in the press.
Today the Halifax Chronicle Herald launched a week-long series investigating the state of school board democracy. The first installment, “From Chaos to Control?,” examines the firings two of the three school boards over the past six years, the Strait Regional Board and the Halifax Regional Board:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/62226-chaos-control
Stay tuned for an upcoming debate over the future of Nova Scotia school boards. What is the source of the dysfunction? And should elected boards be reformed or completely abolished? (Yes, it all started here on Educhatter)