School Board Consultation Paper Where Are You?

[I Murasak]

Anyone know where one can find the Ministry's latest consultation paper titled: "Provincial Interest Regulation" for Bill 177? I read about it in Moira MacDonald's Toronto Sun column on Monday. Apparently this has gone out to the usual stakeholders, but can't be found anywhere on the government's website.

[Bill MacPherson]

It is my understanding that it is still in the consultation phase with the stakeholders. Our board has a deadline of July 31 to respond via OPSBA to the draft recommendations.

[I Murasak]

But my point is that the discussion paper is the consultation phase and it is nowhere to be found. The deadline for this paper is August 31st. It seems that the discussion is a closed one for selected "partners".
People for Education is one of them, but few other public groups are included.

[Sheila Stewart]

This is the first I have heard about the title of the discussion paper. Interesting. I did get communication that we would see the outcomes/legislation by the fall--"we" as in parents.

[Gay Stephenson]

I know Jacqui has an item on her "to do list" to send a summer message out to everyone (the people!) about a consultation of some kind... not sure if it's this one. Our office runs on a shoestring in July and August, with many of us working from home or wherever we find ourselves if we are lucky enough to travel about. But I will try to find out.

Oh the joys of summer consultations - they do not jive with parents' schedules! We will do our best to post a link or the PDF file of the discussion paper here next week if we have received it.

[Catherine]

Thanks Gay! Why wouldn't a government that supports more parental engagement not make sure that consultation on this paper includes as many parents and community types as possible?
Then again it may be that the gov't already knows what it wants to do and is looking for board support...but that's a bit sneaky.

I would hope that since Bill 177 is all about governance and we know too well that something serious has to change re: education governance, you'd think a public consultation would be promoted and responses encouraged much more publicly.

Having only school boards consult is, well, not very public at all.

[Kate Tagseth]

Haven't had much luck finding the consultation paper to which you refer, (still looking!) but I found this review that may be of interest.

Bill 177: Making School Boards More “Responsible” and Less Relevant
Bill 177: “The Student Achievement and School Board Governance Act”
by Dudley Paul

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne got her political start in the Harris days, working with Citizens for Local Democracy and the Toronto Parent Network, opposing amalgamation of cities and school boards. She fought against increasing supervision of boards by the Ministry of Education and as a Toronto District School Board trustee, adamantly refused budget cuts and takeover of that board by the Tory government.

Plus ca change….


Education Minister Kathleen Wynne displays the new trustee uniform prescribed by Bill 177.The Liberals are subtler than their Tory predecessors, but when it comes to budget cuts coupled with micro-management of schools in Ontario they continue apace. The name given to Bill 177: “The Student Achievement and School Board Governance Act, 2009” pretty much sums it up. Based on the April 2009 report of the Minister’s Governance Review Committee, the Bill ties student performance to school board governance in an unprecedented and troubling way. It changes the democratic relationship between school boards and the Province, cutting their authority and making elected board members subject to its whims.

The bill sets the stage for all this by enabling the government to make regulations about the roles, responsibilities, powers and duties of boards, directors of education and board members, including chairs of boards. Prior to the introduction Bill 177, the relevant section of the Education Act (11.1) referred only to regulations about “schools or classes established under this Act.” The government could regulate broad, general matters like the establishment or dissolution of a board, could set and change board boundaries, establish procedures for elections and so on. The new bill is a considerable departure from previous regulation and a very large concern because it puts board members under direct supervision of the Ministry. As Doug Little notes in the May 11 edition of the Little Education Report, the Ministry should just be honest about its intentions and run education out of regional administration offices.

The problem gets worse with Part VI of the Education Act, changed as follows:
“ Board responsibility for student achievement and effective stewardship of resources
169.1 (1) Every board shall,
(a) promote student outcomes specified in regulations made under section 11.1;
(b) ensure effective stewardship of the board’s resources;
© deliver effective and appropriate education programs to its pupils;
(d) develop and maintain policies and organizational structures that,
(i) promote the goals referred to in clauses (a) to ©,
(ii) promote the well-being of the boards’ pupils, and
(iii) encourage pupils to pursue their educational goals;
(e) develop multi-year plans aimed at achieving the goals referred to in clauses (a) to ©;
(f) monitor the performance of the board’s director of education, or the supervisory officer acting as the board’s director of education, in meeting his or her obligations under the plans referred to in clause (e); and
(g) annually review the plans referred to in clause (e) with the board’s director of education or the supervisory officer acting as the board’s director of education.”

Here we get closer to what Bill 177 is all about. Among other things, this section holds board members accountable to the Ministry for teaching of students – something they hire educators to do. It might look good; scrutinizing elected representatives is something we like to do. Usually though, we do it through consultation, letter-writing, badgering, and ultimately, elections.

One elected body holding another accountable to meet its expectations sets up an employer/employee relationship. It’s sometimes easy to forget, but trustees are elected, not appointed by the province. So, this is a fundamental change in relationship between two elected governing bodies- rather like Ottawa holding provincial legislatures directly accountable for meeting some infrastructure goal like improving highway construction. Bill 177 gives the patronizing impression of trying to better guide hapless trustees who just aren’t up to the task and require the steadying hands of Ministry bureaucrats – a disturbing image indeed!

How does the Ministry plan to ensure that boards do what it wants them to? Will the justifiably derided EQAO be the measure of choice to determine whether or not a board promoted student outcomes? What other measure could be used that is not completely open to interpretation or baldly political? The tumult that attended the Mike Harris school board amalgamation cum budget cuts cum Ministry micro-management was justified by Ontario’s middling performance on international tests of Mathematics and Science. The Governance Review Committee suggested that other means might be used to decide how well local trustees are doing at their new jobs, but wasn’t specific. The bill leaves open to Ministry interpretation what it means by promoting students outcomes, ensuring effective stewardship and so on.

Wielding Power
More ominous, is the question: What does Ministry – with this new regulatory power over boards – plan to do if trustees don’t measure up? According to the Governance Review Committee, the Ministry should take over the recalcitrant board appointing a supervisor to manage it, which is what can happen if boards won’t go along with budget cuts. Consequences for non-compliance are not specified, but this is certainly something to watch.

Lest the Ministry be accused of being insufficiently maternalistic, Bill 177 outlines duties of trustees – as it does with employees like teachers and principals- that admonish them to “maintain focus on student achievement and well-being; and comply with the board’s code of conduct” – a new feature introduced in the bill and something else to be regulated by the Ministry. Should a trustee breach the code of conduct, he or she could be censured by the board, docked pay, or barred from meetings or committees. If boards themselves breach any Ministry policies, guidelines or regulations, directors of education would have to apprise their employers of the situation, then inform the Ministry if they don’t get in line.

The Ministry is also tightening financial strings. Over the past 2 years, school boards have been required get Ministry approval of all financial planning related to capital projects like building new schools or additions. Bill 177 adds further restrictions, taking away boards’ ability to issue debentures as a way of paying for them. According to Don Higgins, Executive Superintendent of Business Services, at the Toronto District School Board, such new rules are meant to ensure that the Ministry isn’t left holding bad debts. But taken as a whole, measures such as these and others throughout Bill 177 further a disturbing trend.

Politicians don’t always act judiciously. Their actions come into question in the press, as in the case of Minister Wynne, only recently accused of not acting when Toronto Catholic DSB trustees voted illegal health benefits for themselves or of not reporting complaints made by nannies employed the family of Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla. On the heels of Bill 177, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to explain why he took envelopes filled with thousand dollar bills from Karlheinz Shreiber, Ottawa mayor, Larry O’Brian was on trial for alleged influence-peddling and Ruby Dhalla herself, offered quite a different story from that of the nannies who say they were mistreated. None of this is pretty. However, no one is calling for closer supervision of all elected officials. No one is asking that one level of government be able to take action on another if it doesn’t meet its expectations. No one is calling for one level of government to impose and regulate a code of conduct on another. Any of these actions would be blatantly undemocratic and would raise justifiable howls of protest.

Bill 177 is not about improving education in the province. If Minister Wynne wanted to do that she would rush through a bill to fix the funding formula in the same way this one has gone from committee to first reading in a month. No, Bill 177 is a continuation of the work begun with Mike Harris in the 90’s: reduce local representation and truncate its authority. The Ministry can pull the strings but stay far enough out of the way so that trustees can take the heat.

[Catherine]

Kate - that's an amazing piece! I've believed for some time that the "hands-on" nature of the current ed. minister in fact has been eroding the role of trustees on the one hand, giving ever-increasing authority to board admin. on the other.

What puzzles me is whether over the course of the last years trustees are aware of what's happening to them, and, why OPSBA is allowing it to happen? Don't trustees pay a hefty membership fee using our tax dollars so that OPSBA can help them out?

Something is definitely not right in all of this.

I have to agree that with the writer that Bill 177 is not about educating children. It's about something else entirely.

I'm pretty sure that the Minister will not be able to tie student achievement to boards. After all, look what happened at the Toronto Catholic board. The Minister's in charge there still and nothing remotely serious has happened in the form of consequences. I think misuse of money intended to educate kids deserves consequences that the Minister seems reluctant to deliver.

[Gay Stephenson]

Here are the consultation documents People for Education received electronically. Thanks to the fabulous Jacqui in our office for locating them!

Deadline to respond to the consultation is the end of the summer - Aug. 31st. Bad timing for parents!

But, these ideas have been under consideration since January/09. Here is an excerpt from our newsletter that month:

Boards may be measured on test scores and graduation rates

The Minister has also asked the committee to expand parts of the Education Act. At present, a Minister of Education may intervene in a school board only for financial reasons. The committee is being asked to suggest changes that would allow the Minister to intervene or even take over a school board for educational reasons as well. For example, the Minster could step in if boards weren’t achieving certain standards of student outcomes, test scores or graduation rates.
www.peopleforeducation.com/newsletter/jan09

[Catherine]

Thank-you Gay.

Who at the Ministry level is accountable to parents in all of this and how do we know what they're saying on our behalf?

Can't the Minister/Ministry step in now and take things over or recommend supervision? Are they trying to make it harder or easier? That is not clear by reading the discussion paper.

"Clause 7 of the Education Accountability Act expanded the use of investigations beyond financial matters, and allows the Minister of Education to direct an investigation into general school board operations, including program and curriculum matters, co-instructional activities, class size, minimum teaching time, trustee compensation and spending."

What if anything will change is unclear. Also, "An investigation into the affairs of a school board may be started in one of two ways: * by the Minister of Education if she or he has concerns, OR * by a school council or tax supporter of the board filing a complaint with the Minister. Such an investigation could result in the ministry taking control of the board's affairs."

You don't suppose that the timing of this consultation was purposeful do you? That the gov't and Minister Wynne know exactly where they're going and are just looking for support in-house?

[Sheila Stewart]

Thanks Gay and Jacqui,
Yes, I guess this whole "process" did start back in January. Under the "redefining school boards" discussion there is more about this. I guess the parent input opportunity took place only during the sessions conducted in each region by the Governance Review Committee. The link to their final report is in the "redefining school boards" discussion as well. The recommendations to the Minister are there, as well as a list of participating boards. Separate sessions in the new year were held for admin., trustees, parents, etc. In our region we had a parent input session. Our PIC received a letter from the Ministry to send two (only) parent members to attend from our board along with parents from surrounding boards--I would assume two each as well. Through our Council of School Council Chairs we notified school council chairs about the session, sent out the discussion paper, offered the opportunity for their councils/parents to forward input to the two attending parents, and encouraged the individual online option to submit input. After the committee's report was published, it was also distributed as well. Since then it seems that further steps/documents in the process have not included parents as far as I am aware, although this discussion paper seems to imply some inclusion.
But anyways, the parent input is summarized in the Review Committee's report.

[Sheila Stewart]

Hi Catherine. I'm trying to get clear myself after reading this....will it be harder or easier for the Minister to respond? I am mulling over the wording, "the Minister may respond....i.e, to the "triggers"...? It also states that the "Governance Review Committee shaped the context of this consultation paper". More reading....!

[Catherine]

Sheila - could you provide a link to the Governance Review Committee report on the parent consultations please? I didn't see it attached to Gay's links that she provided.

So the school boards were responsible for getting parent consultation?