Rainbow District School Board trustee defends Island rep

To the Expositor:

I feel I have to respond to an article that appeared in the May 7, 2014 edition of the Expositor under the title ‘Trustee Killens and RDSB chair butt heads over role of School Council.’

First of all, Trustee Killens is not alone in his concern over the way School Councils are being utilized by the RDSB and likely by most other school boards in Ontario. I too, as trustee of the RDSB Area 3, support his concerns. Under the Education Act, Regulation 612/00 establishes that the purpose of School Councils is to “through the active participation of parents, improve pupil achievement and to enhance the accountability of the education system to parents” and “A School Council’s primary means of achieving its purpose is by making recommendations in accordance with this regulation to the principal of the school and the board that established the council.”

With respect to the advisory authority of school councils, Section 20 of Reg. 612/00 states: “A school council may make recommendations to the principal of the school or to the board that established the council on any matter.” What must be pointed out in this section is that the school council may make their recommendations on any matter and to either the principal of the school or the board.

The article reports Chair Doreen Dewar as stating that trustees should be working as a “liaison between the parents and the principal.” I disagree with this statement since a trustee has no authority to bring concerns of parents to the principal, but must rather bring those concerns to the board of trustees. It is only the board that has the authority to bring those concerns to the principal through the director. That is the governance model that exists under the Education Act.

The Education Act clearly states that it is a “duty” of individual trustees to bring concerns of parents, students and supporters of the board to the attention of the board. Therefore, once a trustee becomes aware of one of these concerns there is an obligation on the trustee to bring the concern to the attention of the board.

There is an obligation under the regulations for the board to respond to each of the concerns and to indicate to the School Council how these concerns will be handled.

Under Board Governance Policy No. 14, “The board may solicit and take into consideration the advice of its parent involvement committee with regard to matters that relate to improving student achievement and well-being, and shall inform the parent involvement committee of its response to advice provided by the committee.”

Therefore, getting back to the main issue in the article, since the board decided to send the new governance manual to the school councils for their review, this was a direct solicitation of advice and feedback. Trustee Killens and myself were both concerned that the School Councils would not have time in two months to call a meeting and consult with parents in order to provide this feedback. We were not disagreeing with the content of the manual, only the process that was used and the lack of opportunity that was given to the School Councils to participate.

Indeed, the role of School Councils has largely been eroded from what was first intended when the Ministry of Education established them. School Councils were to play a much more significant role with respect to ensuring accountability and transparency of school boards, but they have become nothing much more than the old parent-teacher associations that once existed to help with pizza sales and fun fairs. Those are extremely important to the success of any school. But School Councils were intended to play a much greater role in an advisory and accountability capacity to the school board.

I do agree with Chair Dewar that a board of trustees is a democratic process and we are expected to make decisions on behalf of our constituents, but we are also obligated to fulfill our responsibilities to School Councils and parents when we solicit their input and we must recognize the role of the trustee as one of the most effective ways for School Councils to express their concerns to the board.