Exit Speech

Here is the text of my farewell speech for the SD57 Board of Education of which I have been a trustee for 3 years. Additionally, I introduced a motion that the Board of Education create a Freedom of Speech and Whistle Blower Policy to accompany other policies about employee rights and responsibilities.

The new board has some important work ahead in the next four years. Recently I asked our current Board to compile and review our work and pass it on to the new board. Although a majority of us agree this was necessary, it did not happen so I will take some time now to publicly offer my perspective on work that still needs to be done. I’m sure you’ll hear from others about all the good things going on so that gives me some space to talk about items of concern. 

For Partner Groups

Regarding Partner Groups and contributions to committees:

I have heard on several occasions that participation at a committee is irrelevant to that partner group if the topic is not of their interest. I would argue this. I would say that when partner groups are attending a committee they represent the whole district with a specialized opinion and not just their part of the district. Please send committee members who are willing to participate with that lens.

Regarding Partner Groups and Local vs Provincial: I often hear you speak to provincial work, issues, and initiatives. Please work harder to bring forward more local issues and recognize that the board has most of its power directed at making improvements to local working and learning conditions, and local organization and leadership.

Thank you for continuing to bring issues to the board. Keep pushing the board to meet with you often and stay on them about following up on issues. I am reminded of the standalone LGBTQ policy that received strong input from partner groups. At the beginning I was shocked to be the only trustee in favour of this, but after steady attention on this issue eventually the whole board supported it. This shows that advocacy works.

To all teachers and support staff: Thank you for all of your work to educate children in an ever changing world. Education has become complex and each of you regularly take on the role of social worker, counselor, teacher, and caregiver, even when it is not in your job description.

For Senior Administration:

The amount of times I have had emails or motions misunderstood has been astounding and it would appear that all we have done for three years is play games around agendas. Our board could have got a lot more done without those games being played. Please aim for improvements in these areas:

1. Standards of writing and statistics - we still see too many leading statements in documents such as the District Achievement Contract and Superintendents Report on Achievement. Statistics are used to meet minimum compliance standards for the Ministry, but do not make it clear what’s actually happening or justify spending priorities. In the District Achievement Contract  it says that we are a data driven district and yet there is little evidence of data beyond what the Ministry requires us to collect. Release and publish this data to that you are using to track spending and meet goals. No initiative should be released without parameters set for original data goals and timelines. Start collecting data on real cohorts of students and publish 8-10 years of data rather than 3-5 years in order to make more accurate assessments from that data.

2. Partner group engagement - speak to partners and collaborate before making key decisions. For example, instead of consulting end users about a new Student Information System a decision was made behind closed doors about where the district would go. I managed to catch this before it was a done deal, and the board actually created a brief window to collaborate about this. Sadly I think it turned into another game about how to get to the predetermined goal instead of true transparency and collaboration.

3. District wide initiatives - The Sea to Sky school district did it right, they held a district wide cafe and collaborated about the direction the SD would go to implement the BCED Plan. In our district we rebranded existing programs, called it the Essential 8, and then took $20 per student out of schools without the board being asked. In fact we were told at the start that the Essential 8 would not involve new money.

4. Communication - In regular conversation with principals, teachers, other staff, and I hear that communication from the board office can sometime be condescending and misleading. I really hope the new board will pursue higher and more transparent standards when communicating with staff. None of our employees should feel intimidated or handled by the district.

For the New Board, some areas to consider

1. Leadership - In my opinion, this Board acted largely as an extended arm of Management. The new board needs to start being its own entity and leading with Senior Administration treated as a partner group and not the 8th trustee.

2. Accountability - This is an important area of governance for the new Board. It needs to improve the way it review’s itself, does staff performance reviews, reviews HR practice, explains new spending and new initiatives, and communicates with different levels of staff, and the public especially its partner groups.

3. Tracking work - intended actions, motions, and commitments have been lost or forgotten multiple times during this Boards 3 yrs and that needs to be corrected with some form of tracking. I put forward a motion with the Board 2 yrs ago about this but it did not pass. I could not convince the Board that it is a problem when motions are dropped, correspondence is not printed, requests for information are misdirected, emails are not followed up on, etc.

4. Technology - this is a huge issue and a widening gap for this school district and the rest of the province. For example, it took two years longer than stated to update our district website and it still only meets standards from a decade ago. We are making technology decisions based on highly questionable financial arguments and not because they support the teaching and learning that our staff would actually like to do. While we wait on this, a whole generation of students is not getting the opportunity to learn with and about technology that students in other districts get.

5. Special needs - One of my biggest advocacy issues was with our vulnerable learners. Having been a vulnerable learner myself I understand what it’s like to sit in a classroom and not know how to read when the rest of the classroom can. We need to make sure that designated dollars are not leaving these children. I think the SD should follow a model that allows schools to buy additional PEA time that they require to allow children to be assessed. At the very least this SD needs to double the permanent staff in the PEA dep’t and stop bringing in consultants to cover the gaps.

6. Lifting gag orders - I have had some serious conversations that this SD has unofficial gag orders for principals and other staff. When you as trustees go out and visit schools and seek to understand how there school operates, you want to know that the principal will not be interviewed afterwards about what was said. You do not want to hear that they are afraid to talk to trustees or put forward unusual initiatives. You do not want to hear that that the SD culture is about fear, and not innovation or collaboration.

7. Communication - This past term has been frustrating since we were often told to accept board decisions, keep our opinions to ourselves, and leave all media interviews to the Board chair or Superintendent. I would advise this new board to speak out and let people know that there are real conversations going on including dissenting voices. This Board also needs to upload Board info and communicate better on the website such as it is. The Sunshine Coast is a good example of a district with a well working website.

8. Finance - The Board has seriously missed the boat on this one. I have repeatedly asked for action items to be attached to recommendations and this has not happened. Here are some examples.

a) Set parameters set around any new initiatives. The $20 per student Essential 8 plan as well as the new $130,000 Trades position should have had openly shown what was to be accomplished and by when, so that it can be seen where public money is going and how targets will be met.

b) Recommendations - don’t just make recommendations and expect that to turn into actions. That has been asked of senior staff without results, such as with the ECOW recommendations last year.

c) More care around surplus spending - if surplus is spent I would suggest not using it to grow the size of the school board office size, but put the money back in schools and support the growth of the PEA dept staff. Some of the money spent in this way comes back the district in the form of new student designations.

d) Publish results of learning team grants or district initiatives - this would allow for qualitative collaboration, data gathered can back where professional development could be increased and allow for better spending and tracking of dollars spent for these initiatives.

Last and Least, a message for the Minister of Education and the government: Your actions over many years have strained public education to a breaking point, some would say on purpose to promote corporate investment and private schooling. You need to start taxing fairly so that our children get a better quality public education and are more able to take care of you when you are old.

So, the new board has its work cut out. I wish you all the best and encourage you to set your expectations high and do it early.