Education Minister Stephen Lecce is ignoring the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and here’s why

by Debbie L. Kasman in

This post was updated on May 31, 2023. Read to the very end for the update.

On June 5, 2020, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) wrote to Education Minister Stephen Lecce requesting, among other things, that Minister Lecce advise the OHRC on whether he had any plans to expand the implementation of his Directions to the Peel District School Board (PDSB) beyond Peel region.

In an email dated Friday, November 13, 2020, Director of Policy, Education, Monitoring and Outreach for the OHRC Shaheen Azmi wrote, “…the OHRC has not received a response from the Ministry to our June 5th letter. The OHRC continues to reach out to the Ministry on this and various other issues and will again raise the matters identified in our June 5th letter at the first opportunity.”

In other words, Minister Lecce is ignoring the human rights commission.

Why is Minister Lecce ignoring the human rights commission?

Here’s why:

In her email, Ms. Azmi wrote, “Our work is guided by our Strategic Plan and informed by ongoing engagement with our Education Advisory Group, with final decision being made by our appointed commissioners.” (The italics are mine.) “We simply don’t have the resources to take on all human rights issues and concerns.”

Doug Ford’s Conservatives have slowly and deliberately starved human rights protections to death during their time in office. Premier Ford has also left positions at the human rights commission vacant, cut or eliminated, and he ignored a short list put forward by the human rights commissioner to fill vacant positions, choosing instead to appoint commissioners with ties to the Progressive Conservative party.

The OHRC was established in 1961 as an arm’s length agency of government to prevent discrimination and to promote and advance human rights in Ontario. Under Doug Ford’s government, the OHRC isn’t arms length.

Minister Lecce also ignored a request to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (HRTO) to produce his response to the commission’s June 5th letter. Minister Lecce didn’t produce the letter because there was no letter to produce. So Minister Lecce is ignoring both the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

Premier Ford and Minister Lecce are also ignoring elected MPPs. Nine different MPPs hand-delivered a letter to the education minister in the Legislature, during a caucus meeting, or to the minister’s office. The letter pointed out that discriminatory practices are happening in school boards across the province. There was no response to the letter.

Premier Ford and Minister Lecce are also ignoring legal advise by the Ontario Ombudsman. Legal counsel at the Ombudsman’s Office told senior advisors at the Ministry of Education that the Education Act needs to change in order to address inconsistent applications of trustee conduct across the province, which is leading to systemic discrimination. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have only changed the Education Act to water down qualifications for director of education.

Premier Ford also cancelled the ministry of education’s planned professional development sessions to school boards on equity within a few months of taking office. He also cancelled curriculum re-writes to boost Indigenous education, the previous Liberal government’s pledge to make Indigenous courses mandatory in high school, slashed millions of dollars from the Indigenous Culture Fund, repealed the Far North Act, and cut 15% in overall funding for Indigenous affairs with no new money to deal with claim settlements.

The Conservative Party of Ontario never has the political will to deal with systemic discrimination. When the Ministry of Education released its Antiracism and Ethnocultural Equity in School Boards Guidelines for Policy Development and Implementation document in 1993, Premier Mike Harris scrapped the entire initiative within a month of taking office, and fired Deputy Minister Charles Pascal because of the advice Dr. Pascal was giving.

Minister Lecce (or the Conservative party for that matter) is not “expeditiously” working toward eliminating systemic discrimination in education because of its “rapid” response to issues at the Peel District School Board. Minister Lecce is ignoring the human rights commission, the human rights tribunal, nine different MPPs, and the Ontario Ombudsman.

Minister Lecce is also using a “limited checkbox approach,” and complying “without context,” terms used by Huggins in her Review of the Peel District School Board, just before trustees were “depowered” and the Board taken over by Supervisor Rodrigues.

Minister Lecce does what Dr. Charles Pascal, a Professor of Applied Psychology and Human Development at OISE/University of Toronto calls “virtue signalling.” Minister Lecce publicly expresses opinions and sentiments that are intended to demonstrate his good character and moral correctness, but does so while ignoring systemic discrimination across the province.

Minister Lecce also consistently ignores school board trustees, while school board trustees ignore him. For example, in the Ottawa-Carlton District School Board (OCDSB), Minister Lecce asked Trustee Donna Blackburn to resign after she made racially insensitive remarks to a Black teen, but she refused to resign.

Minister Lecce also asked trustees in the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) to censure Trustee Del Grande and to make an investigative report public after Del Grande made homophobic comments during a public meeting, but the trustees refused to censure Del Grande or release a copy of the report. The trustees only censured Del Grande and released a redacted version of the report after former Premier Kathleen Wynne weighed in, and the media highlighted the story.

A similar situation is also playing out in the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB). Rather than address the situation provincially, Minister Lecce asked “his officials” to “watch closely to ensure a fulsome investigation is completed and actions are taken,” instead of intervening. (The HWDSB is being investigated after an outgoing student trustee raised deeply disturbing allegations of racism. Former student trustee, Ahona Mehdi, called HWDSB a “disgustingly racist and oppressive institution.”)

Current and former Hamilton-Wentworth students are also calling for Minister Lecce to conduct a province-wide investigation into school board racism. The students are saying the HWDSB’s investigation is “not genuine,” and are questioning how the ministry is going to ensure the investigation is “fulsome.” The students are even calling the provincial government’s actions “reactive,” saying the issues are pervasive in other school boards, too. (You are onto something here, kids! Keep speaking out!)

In the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB), high school students walked out of class on November 19, 2020, to protest what they say is persistent, often unchecked racism in their schools. The strike was organized by Students Speak Up YCDSB to demand meaningful action from school administrators.

What’s happening in Ontario is that systemic discrimination is running rampant in our education system, while Premier Ford and Minister Lecce pay lip service to the issue. These leaders say all the right things (virtue signalling) – if we ignore Premier Ford’s June 2020 comments that there is no systemic discrimination in Canada – but these same leaders are actually ignoring the human rights commission, the human rights tribunal, Ontario’s Ombudsman, various MPPs, wayward trustees who refuse to resign or deal appropriately with breaches of codes of conduct, and students.

What’s really going on with trustees is that school board trustees don’t want to readily give in to having their authority removed. They even said so in a Chairpersons’ committee meeting at the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB). These comments were accidentally recorded in the meeting minutes and made public. This runs parallel to what’s currently happening in the U. S. with President Donald Trump refusing to concede his power to President-elect Joe Biden.

The situation in education in Ontario is an absurd, dysfunctional, catastrophic, discriminatory mess.

The Toronto District School Board Office of the Integrity Commissioner’s Annual Report for April 2019 to September 2020, which was just released, shows that the extensive work that has been done in the TDSB is still “overshadowed” by allegations of “unequal treatment of motions” and that “the motions of certain trustees were ‘shut down’ because of the communities they represented and not because procedural rules were not followed.”

Suzanne Craig, the Integrity Commissioner who submitted the report, noted that she has observed trustees conducting themselves with a lack of decorum and respect for other Members of the Board, with some trustees sending tweets to shame other trustees into voting a particular way.

There is also a perception, Craig wrote, that the “referees’ are biased as seen in other school boards. “In other words, those parts of the institution that are created to act in an arms-length objective way, do not and as a result, the processes at the Board are viewed from within or externally as, ‘rigged’ to benefit one group over another, the louder voice over the more subdued, the oppressors over the oppressed.”

This is exactly what’s happening with our current human rights system in Ontario under Doug Ford’s leadership, and it, too, is running parallel to what is currently happening in the U. S. with President Donald Trump. He stacked the Supreme Court with his own political allies.

In her book, Policing Black Lives, Robyn Maynard cites the persistent anti-Blackness in schools across Canada, explaining the degradation, harm and psychological violence many Black students face.

In 2015, it was exposed that in the Halifax Regional School Board, nearly half of the students placed on Individual Program Plans were Black.

In Mississauga, Ontario, a six-year old Black girl was placed in handcuffs after misbehaving at school. The OHRT ruled it was discriminatory.

A 2017 report called Towards Race Equity in Education found that Black children face hyper-surveillance of their behaviour in schools. They are excluded from class from often, disciplined more frequently, suspended and expelled from schools at higher rates, pushed into non-academic streams in school.

Black boys in particular are disengaging from school as early as age seven. The report’s main author, Carl James, a professor of Education at York University, says this means not wanting to go to school, not feeling safe, and not feeling welcomed in classrooms that are not designed for them.

The Peel Review shows factional violence amongst South Asian communities, escalating alcohol and drug abuse amongst South Asian students, blatant hostility to the Muslim community, anti-Semitic language and displays, high suicide rates amongst 2SLGBTQ+ students, stigma toward Indigenous members of the community, gross underrepresentation of Latin American students and Black students in regional choice learning programs, Black students being grossly overrepresented in suspensions, Black students being streamed into non-academic courses, and a prima facie case of race based discrimination, particularly anti-Black discrimination.

Additionally, some school boards continue to operate with male dominant leadership teams. For example, in 2014 the KPRDSB trustees created a senior leadership team of 7 men and only 2 women, nearly all white, and the white male director of education allowed this to happen.

We need to expose, challenge and dismantle these practices, behaviours, and procedures.

It’s time to name people, organizations and political parties again.

(Since I started naming people, the KPRDSB has hired 2 female directors of education and 4 female superintendents, one Black, and one Brown, and they’ve made changes to the Human Resources department. The previous director of education “retired,” the current director is retiring early, and Michael Salvatori, Registrar with the Ontario College of Teachers, suddenly resigned. The Ontario Principals’ Council also started to protect its members who speak out about systemic discrimination.)

In order to properly eliminate systemic discrimination in education in Ontario:

1.     School board employees must speak out about discriminatory practices (Cecil Roach in the YRDSB and Poleen Grewal in the PDSB, for example).

2.     School board employees must speak out without terrorizing, bullying, and harassing each other. (I say this because the PDSB is currently struggling with this issue.)

3.     The Ontario College of Teachers must change its current messaging from telling teachers they do not have freedom of expression if the content reflects poorly on their school, their school board, or the teaching profession, to telling teachers that speaking out about systemic discrimination is mandatory.

4.     The Council of Ontario Directors of Education (CODE) must stop ignoring systemic discrimination and actively speak out.

5.     The Ontario Public Supervisory Officers’ Association must do the same.

6.     Educational unions must protect their members who speak out while helping them learn how to do so without terrorizing, bullying, and harassing each other.

7.     The Ontario Ombudsman (Paul Dubé) must stop “monitoring” the situation and intervene.

8.     Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner (J. David Wake) must stop saying he can’t do anything about the situation and intervene.

9.     The Conservative party must come to terms with the fact that the school board governance model must change. (Trustees are dysfunctional and irrelevant. It’s no wonder. The current model is 300 years old. The Ontario government should replace school board trustees with race and gender balanced advisory councils.)

10.  All political and education leaders must operate from a higher level of consciousness. (Thank you to former TVDSB Director of Education Laura Elliott for spending valuable time on the telephone with me. Thank you to former TDSB Director of Education John Malloy who responded to several of my letters, saying my perspective was “much appreciated,” while thanking me for writing. Thank you to Robin Pilkey, former Chair of the TDSB, who said I “raised many excellent points” in response to one of my letters. Thank you to all the school board directors who responded to my July 2019 survey. Thank you to Valerie Dugale, Media Relations with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO), who thanked me for sharing my perspective with the elementary teachers’ union saying, “We had a lot of discussion about [your letter] among staff and it prompted EFTO to release a broader statement today on anti-Black racism.” Thank you to Juanita Nathan, Chair of the York Region District School Board (YRDSB), who wrote, “You raise many excellent points that require consideration by the Board in its ongoing work. I appreciate your interest in public education and governance matters.” Trustee Nathan was responding to my letter to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Thank you to Louise Sirisko, the Director of Education for YRDSB, who also wrote, “Thank you for reaching out to me. You raise important points for consideration and reflection for staff.”)

11.  Educational leaders must speak the truth.

12.  Educational leaders must respond intelligently to the complex challenges they face.

13.  Educational leaders must have foresight to engage their school boards in likely futures and consequences for action and inaction.

14.  Educational leaders must stimulate and effectively manage change on a large scale under complex circumstances.

15.  Educational leaders must show initiative and perseverance in bringing about meaningful change.

16.  Trustees must stop calling employees who speak out against systemic discrimination “loony” (like Trustee Cathy Abraham did to me. She is now President of the Ontario Public School Board Association).

17.  School boards must stop saying “allegations” of systemic discrimination are “inflammatory rhetoric” that are “meritless” and “defy belief” (like the Peel DSB did to Poleen Grewal).

18.  School boards must stop threatening community activists with trespass letters (like the Peel DSB did toward Idris Oroghu).

19.  School boards must stop threatening community activists groups with defamation lawsuits (like Peter Joshua, David Green, Mark Haarmann, Gale Solomon-Henry (who later withdrew her name) did toward (@HomeisPeel, @AdvocacyPeel, @PeelBlackParent, @WeRiseTogether1, @peelblackyouth1 and @MinistryPeel who were speaking out about systemic discrimination).

20.  Trustees must stop saying there is no systemic discrimination in education.  

21.  Trustees must stop laughing when they are told the Ontario Ombudsman won’t do anything.

22.  Trustees must stop saying, “Trustees decide who to interview, whom to hire, and who will get the job. Enough already!” (Trustees are only supposed to sit on hiring panels for directors of education.)

23.  School boards must stop issuing legal cease-and-desist letters when employees speak out against systemic discrimination.

24.  Female directors must stop saying they were promoted based on merit so there can’t be any gender discrimination in education.

25.  Male directors must stop saying the case is “closed” when they haven’t done an investigation.

26.  The Ontario College of Teachers must stop telling teachers their school board has “addressed any public interest there may be regarding this matter” when school boards haven’t addressed public interest at all,

27.  The human resources departments of school boards must begin to handle complaints of systemic discrimination appropriately and in an arm’s length fashion (unlike the PDSB, the KPRDSB, and many others school boards are doing).

We must expose, challenge and dismantle every single layer of the entire education system.

School board employees have a duty of loyalty to the school board where they work, but a school board’s duty of loyalty to the students and the public they serve supercedes their duty of loyalty to the school board when it comes to serious issues like systemic discrimination. This is a new way of thinking - a paradigm shift, if you will - and it’s what those working in positions of power in education must understand.

Those working in positions of power in education must also understand that it’s not an employee’s duty to remain silent about discrimination, in order to make the school board look good. It’s an employee’s responsibility to speak out about discrimination in order to help the school board improve.

The current situation – where the Progressive Conservative party is paying lip service to systemic discrimination, while ignoring the issue provincially, and while Premier Ford and Minister Lecce are deliberately ignoring the human rights commission, the human rights tribunal, and the Ombudsman, while the Ombudsman does nothing but “monitor” the situation, and while Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner refuses to do anything, and while school board trustees deliberately ignore Minister Lecce, and while employees and activists are penalized and punished, and while Premier Ford and Minister Lecce ignore dysfunctional trustees and systemic discrimination in education – is untenable.

Things must change!

I filed an Application with the human rights tribunal in October 2019 against Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario as represented by the Ministry of Education, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, the Ontario Principals’ Council, and the Ontario College of Teachers in order to affect meaningful change.

While the success rate for cases such as mine is rare to never (another reason why the Conservative Party is ignoring the human rights commission and the human rights tribunal), I remain hopeful that things will change.

I told the Tribunal they won’t find any quick, clean, obvious acts of discrimination because systemic discrimination doesn’t work that way, that systemic discrimination involves attitudes, patterns of behavior, policies and practices that appear to be neutral on the surface, but aren’t, which is exactly what’s happening in the education system in Ontario.

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t have any legal training, but I have a deep love and passion for the pubic education system and a decent knowledge of how the education system works. (I’m also extremely fed up with the lack of leadership I’m seeing in politics and education so I took this issue on.)

I asked the Tribunal to assign an adjudicator with specific expertise and training in systemic discrimination because many adjudicators don’t have this kind of training, and most adjudicators look for quick, clean, obvious acts of discrimination, which means they won’t find any.

I’m waiting for the Tribunal to decide if they are going to allow my Application to proceed or if the Tribunal is going to allow systemic discrimination in education to flourish. I’ve written a book about my entire experience. It’s called Shattering My Internal Glass Ceiling: One Woman’s Struggle For Change. I’ll be releasing the book after the Tribunal weighs in.  

There are a few other people and organizations I’d like to thank.

Thank you to Parents of Black Children, the Vaughan African Canadian Association and YRDSB Kids Deserve Better for their support. Thank you specifically to Charline Grant, Kearie Daniel, Alex Battick, and Todd Silverman for their support.

Thank you to former trustees Larry Killens, Tom Mahoney and Ashley Noble who have been in close contact to share their stories, to assist, and to let me know they are deeply concerned about the state of affairs in education, too.

Thank you to the few school board trustees who have reached out to thank me for sending along my work. (I don’t wish to name these individuals as it might lead to repercussions from their colleagues.)

Thank you to the educational leaders and researchers who have called my writing powerful, accurate, well researched, and even brilliant, and to those who have privately let me know they agree with my assessment. (I don’t wish to name these individuals as I don’t wish to jeopardize their careers, either.)

Thank you to the Integrity Commissioner who took the time to tell me he/she loves my “Trouble with School Board Trustees” video and that some of his/her Integrity Commissioner colleagues love the video, too.

Thank you to the small handful of former colleagues who have been supporting me and who continue to support me. (I won’t name these individuals as I don’t wish to jeopardize their careers, either.)

Thank you to Dr. Emily Carasco and Dr. Pamela Milne – Professors Emeriti from the University of Windsor – for generously sharing their time and expertise with me, and for sharing details of Dr. Carasco’s journey with me when Dr. Carasco attempted to hold the University of Windsor Faculty of Law to account after she was discriminated against there.

Thank you to MPP Marit Stiles (Davenport and Official Opposition Eduction Critic) who responded to one of my letters, MPP Tibollo (Vaughan – Woodbridge) who forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office, MPP Dunlop (Simcoe – North) who hand delivered my letter to Minister Thompson at a caucus meeting, MPP Monteith-Farrell (Thunder Bay – Atikokan) who sent my letter to Minister Thompson's office with a covering letter requesting that Minister Thompson respond directly to me, MPP Thanigasalam (Scarborough – Rouge Park) who forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office, MPP Kernaghan (London – North Centre) who delivered my letter to Minister Thompson's office; MPP Lalonde (Orléans) who emailed my letter to Minister Thompson, MPP Crawford (Oakville) who forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office and for following up with me saying that the Ministry of Education had acknowledged receipt of my correspondence and would be responding to me directly (even though they never did), and to MPP Lorne Coe (Whitby) for hand delivering my letter to Minister Thompson in the Legislature.

Thank you to the women who publicly joined the women’s coalition I created in the KPRDSB when the Board created a senior leadership team of 7 men and only 2 women under Director of Education Rusty Hick’s leadership: Janis Leone, Susan Cawker, Lynn Holley, Vicki Delahaye, Norma Vatcher, Sherry-Lee Boyd, Kim Kennedy, Frances Ivy, Shawna MacKellar, Wendy Goodes, Carol Peterson, Tara Arnold, Jeanette Sage, Daria Gimon, Robin Helgesen, Brad MacMaster, Jeanette Morrison, Heather Hedges, Beverly Wright, Margaret Lobb, Leona Davidson, Leslie Schroeder, Marcie Steele, Mavis Chinamora-Stapleton and Mary Jane Dalton.

Thank you also to the women and men who joined the women’s coalition privately. (You know who you are.) Shortly after we formed, the women’s coalition began to support women and racialized individuals. It’s not enough that white women support their own gender only. Women (and men) need to support all genders, all races, all colours, all cultures, and all creeds.

Thank you to the teachers on staff who supported me before I retired. (You know who you are, too.)

Thank you to Assistant Deputy Minister Patrick Case and Supervisor Bruce Rodrigues for working hard to turn the PDSB around under a Conservative government that refuses to properly address systemic discrimination, and for always listening politely and respectfully to me.

Last, but not least, thank you to you - the reader - for reading my work, many of whom are in high level positions in education in Ontario. (Thanks also to those who have responded on occasion.) It’s been one hell of a journey. Your support means a lot.

Debbie L. Kasman

M. Ed, Policy Studies, OISE/University of Toronto, Education Re-imagined, Analyst & Researcher, Author & Speaker

[Editor’s note: Minister Lecce met with Ena Chadha, Chief Commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and Raj Dhir, Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel for the Ontario Human Rights Commission, on December 2, 2020, seven business days after I published this post. Now Minister Lecce can say he met with the Commission. In fact, as soon as he did, Minister Lecce made sure the public knew he met with the Commission by posting about the meeting on Twitter. Apparently, Minister Lecce is reading my posts, too.

On September 7, 2021, the Ministry of Education announced it was seeking input from the public on how to strengthen accountability for school board trustees.

On November 1, 2021, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) wrote to Minister Lecce in response to the consultation on strengthening accountability for school board trustees, noting the Commission was particularly interested in measures to ensure trustees are held accountable if they fail to fulfill their legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code (Code).

The OHRC noted it is concerned about reports of trustees engaging in discriminatory conduct including making homophobic, Islamophobic and racist comments, stating it is “particularly troubling when such behaviour is exhibited by education leaders entrusted with the responsibility to ensure school systems uphold and champion human rights.”

The new Chief Commissioner, Patricia DeGuire, wrote:

The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that school boards must foster an atmosphere of tolerance and respect and cannot rely on the personal views of some individuals to deny equal recognition for the human rights of other members of the school community.

The minimum standards for codes of conduct should require school board trustees to respect, protect and promote human rights at the board and throughout the education system they govern. They should state that school boards and their trustees have a legal duty under the Code to maintain an inclusive environment, free from discrimination and harassment for trustees, student trustees, board staff, students, parents and guardians and members of the public. Boards and their trustees must take steps to prevent and respond appropriately to violations of the Code or they may be held “liable” and face monetary penalties or other orders from a tribunal or court.

To support these minimum standards and Code obligations, all board members should be required to successfully complete Ministry-approved education and training on human rights. Required training should include anti-racism, as well as content on Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) cultural sensitivity and cultural safety that is developed and delivered by the Indigenous communities served by their board.

The OHRC strongly recommends that boards be required to establish a complaint process that ensures all allegations of discrimination by a trustee, including complaints made by student trustees, board staff, students, parents and guardians and other members of the public, are brought to the board’s attention. The process should make clear that, in accordance with the Code no person shall be negatively treated for raising a complaint, providing information related to a complaint or helping to resolve a complaint. Moreover, information about the availability of a complaint process should be easily accessible and widely publicized.

School boards have a duty to take complaints alleging a breach of the Code seriously and to act upon them promptly. Human rights jurisprudence has established that a duty holder’s failure to investigate and address allegations of discrimination and harassment in a timely and effective manner can cause and/or exacerbate the harm of discrimination.

School boards have a Code duty to take action when a trustee is found to have engaged in discrimination. Since the goal of human rights legislation is preventative and remedial rather than punitive, steps must be taken to both remedy the effects of the discrimination and prevent future occurrences.

The Education Act sets out potential sanctions for a trustee’s breach of the code of conduct, including censure and barring a trustee’s participation in board meetings and committees (s.218.3(3). The OHRC submits that, in certain circumstances, other measures may be necessary and appropriate to meet the remedial and preventative goals of human rights law. For example, mandating participation in additional human rights training could serve to prevent further Code breaches. Stronger sanctions, such as removal from office where the law permits, may be necessary in the case of a very serious breach. The OHRC recommends that school boards have all of the authority necessary to remedy human rights violations.

The Education Act requires school boards to vote publicly on determinations of code of conduct breaches and the imposition of sanctions. The OHRC recommends that boards be required to publicly report aggregate data on all complaints and their outcomes, on an annual basis.

The OHRC calls on the Ontario government to undertake any legislative, regulatory and/or policy changes necessary to implement these recommendations.

On March 21, 2023, the Ontario College of Teachers announced College Council had received a report from the Standards of Practice and Education Committee highlighting the development of a new Professional Advisory to inform members of the College of their professional responsibilities to uphold human rights and combat hate and intolerance.

The Professional Advisory will include rigorous consultation with stakeholders and experts in the field, the Standards of Practice and Education Committee will be provided with regular updates on the advisory development process and an opportunity for interim reviews of the advisory document, College Council will be kept apprised of developments of the Professional Advisory via the Registrar’s Report, a final version will be tabled as information at the appropriate Council meeting, the Professional Advisory will be published on the College website and distributed to members electronically, and the Professional Advisory will require Standards of Practice and Education Committee approval prior to publication.

On April 17, 2023, Minister Lecce tabled the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act in the Legislature, saying its goal is to modernize the province’s education system. The proposed Bill has five key focus areas that will be supported by education policy reforms, and those reforms will:

1. Ensure that all school boards across the province are focused on delivering on the government's key priorities for student achievement and improving accountability and transparency on board performance and funding.

2. Implement standardized processes, a fair and impartial framework to support the integrity of trustee conduct, and expectations for boards of trustees, Directors of Education and supervisory officers.

3. Maximize capital assets of boards to support building modern schools faster and better utilize school capacity so that students can attend school as close to home as possible. The proposed Bill will better leverage surplus property for public education and other provincial priorities, address accommodation needs in urban/high growth areas, ensure better planning for schools and associated child care facilities, maximize school capacity, where appropriate and improve consistency at the design phase to help reduce planning time and expedite the approvals process.

4. Strengthen teacher training and oversight to ensure teachers are trained for the needs of today's and tomorrow's classrooms and support student safety through fair and effective disciplinary processes for teachers and registered early childhood educators. The proposed Bill will ensure that fair and efficient disciplinary processes and other measures are in place for educators to build on progress made in previous reforms that enable the Ontario College of Teachers and the College of Early Childhood Educators to discharge their roles more effectively.

5. Encourage consistent information and approaches to student learning through more accessible information and opportunities for parents to get involved, and greater consistency in student mental health and well-being supports. This includes providing the information and tools necessary to ensure consistent information and approaches to student learning, including a greater role for parents and student learning about mental health and well-being.

The amendments proposed in Schedule 2 of the Bill will, if passed, amend the Education Act to drive provincial priorities to enhance accountability and transparency and to enable more effective governance through reforms for the education sector, boards of trustees and Directors of Education.

THESE CHANGES AREN’T ENOUGH.

On May 16, 2023, the College allowed the complaints against former Director of Education, Rusty Hick, and former Superintendent, Shelly Roy, to move forward by proceeding with investigating 11 allegations. Details of those complaints can be found here.

THIS ISN’T ENOUGH, EITHER.

Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DebbieKasman.