April 14, 2021
Dear Ms. Naylor and Mr. Case,
On April 9, 2021, Bruce Rodrigues, the Supervisor of the Peel District School Board (PDSB), issued a public statement of apology to Kola Iluyomade and six different community advocacy groups on behalf of the PDSB.
As you are aware, PDSB had initiated a legal application against community advocates engaged in anti-discrimination advocacy subsequent to the Ministry of Education’s Review released on March 13, 2020. The notice stated that several Twitter accounts engaged in disrespectful and defamatory communication towards the Board of Trustees and staff members.
Rodrigues called the initiating of this Application discriminatory, anti-Black and a deliberate attempt to silence community members’ public participation.
When I was advocating for gender and race equality in the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB), one of the trustees called my comments defamatory, and another trustee called my email disrespectful. The Chair of the Board and the Senior Manager of Human Resources also issued a legal cease-and-desist letter threatening me with a lawsuit if I continued to speak out. These are just three of the many discriminatory responses I received from KPRDSB that were deliberate attempts to silence me when I was advocating for gender and race equality.
Another way school boards silence people who advocate for gender and race equity is by buying their silence when they file Applications with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) and then requiring they sign a confidentiality agreement, which means the applicant cannot talk about what happened or the settlement.
This means the public never finds out what happened, which allows school boards to continue to discriminate against students, employees and activists “in plain sight” without getting caught. This is how sex offenders like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby were able to continue to abuse women for years “in plain sight.”
School boards also offer mediation outside of any OHRT application if they believe the media is going to pick up on a story. They even tell people it would be “more fruitful” if they mediate with the board rather than talk to the media. On the flip side, school boards also withdraw offers to mediate if the media doesn’t pick up on the story. Then school boards issue legal cease-and-desist letters threatening to sue people if they continue to speak out about the issues.
School boards also use aggressive retribution tactics, like demoting and firing people who speak out, in order to keep employees quiet. School boards are sophisticated employers who use many aggressive approaches to silence victims, and they use taxpayers’ dollars to do it, which is money that should be going into classrooms to support teachers and students.
Additionally, victims typically don’t have the financial resources that are necessary to engage with powerhouse Toronto law firms like school boards do. School boards have large financial resources at their disposal – taxpayers’ dollars that were intended to support teachers and students in the classroom.
Several years ago, I conducted a CanLii search, which provides access to court judgments from all Canadian courts and tribunals, and I found a total of 17,552 cases of alleged discrimination, just for hiring and promotion alone, in Ontario during a ten-year period.
Then I did a search of alleged discrimination for hiring and promotion in Ontario over one week, and I found 21 cases. Of the 21 cases, the tribunal had reported nine final decisions. None of the nine applicants were successful in proving discrimination. The cases had been deemed abandoned and/or they were dismissed.
That’s a success rate of zero out of 9 in the space of one week!
In February, the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) announced it was appointing Robert Hofstatter as director of education calling it a “bold, new era of leadership.” The YCDSB hired Mr. Hofstatter with only three years teaching experience using a change Minister Lecce made to the Education Act allowing them to do so. When Minister Lecce made this change, he said it was to allow school boards to hire more diverse directors of education.
Then, on April 7, 2021, the YCDSB suddenly announced that Mr. Hofstatter was no longer its director of education.
The Toronto Star learned that during Mr. Hofstatter’s first week on the job, he took part in a virtual workshop on equity where his behaviour “so upset a York University professor and a colleague leading the session that a letter was sent to the board, cancelling all upcoming training.”
Vidya Shah, one of the presenters, said Mr. Hofstatter “thought it was appropriate to interrupt me and tell me his thoughts on anti-racism, which were clearly different to mine. This is an example of what whiteness in educational leadership looks like,” she said.
Mr. Hofstatter also sent an email to parents of all 54,600 students incorrectly suggesting the province would issue a “four-week shutdown of schools across Ontario starting Tuesday, April 6” as part of a broader lockdown. He then issued a retraction the next day saying the board “apologizes for any confusion with regards to potential school closures.”
In an interview with the Toronto Star, Minister Lecce placed the blame for Mr. Hofstatter’s appointment squarely on the shoulders of the YCDSB trustees. This is another way that school boards, and even the Minister of Education, respond to incidents of discrimination. These education leaders often deflect the blame from themselves and onto school board trustees, who are predominantly female. When you factor in that Minister Lecce is male and the YCDSB trustees are predominantly female, Minister Lecce’s comments are an indicator of gender discrimination.
Section 285 (2) of the Education Act states:
No person shall be appointed as a supervisory officer by a board until notice in writing of the proposed appointment and the area of responsibility to be assigned has been given to the Minister and the Minister has confirmed that the person to be appointed is eligible for the position.
This applies to directors of education as well.
This means Minister Lecce gave his permission for the YCDSB to appoint Mr. Hofstatter, and he gave his permission on January 19, 2021. (I have an email from the Chair of the Board to prove it.) Clearly, based on what has happened, Mr. Hofstatter was not eligible for the position of director of education, particularly when it comes to equity.
In an attempt to distance Minister Lecce from this hiring appointment, Caitlin Clark, Deputy Director of Communications for Minister Lecce, told people that Minister Lecce didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Hofstatter’s appointment, but she refused to make a written statement saying so. This means Ms. Clark may also be guilty of discrimination because she’s attempting to cover up Minister Lecce’s part in the appointment of Minister Hofstatter which was discriminatory. This appointment was discriminatory because this appointment infringed the rights of racialized students, and it was not reasonable or bona fide considering the current education circumstances.
Minister Lecce didn’t need to make changes to the Education Act to allow school boards to hire more diverse directors of education. School boards could already hire more diverse directors of education who were not supervisory officers qualified as teachers with permission from Minister Lecce.
It’s obvious Minister Lecce is not interested in stamping out systemic discrimination in education provincially or he would have changed the Education Act to remove trustees from hiring panels for superintendents, which is leading to discrimination. Minister Lecce knows this is leading to discrimination because that’s why he ordered the trustees in the PDSB to immediately remove themselves from hiring panels for superintendents and to create a policy restricting trustees from hiring panels for all positions except director of education. Clearly, Minister Lecce is not interested in stamping out systemic discrimination in school boards across the province, and Minister Lecce and school board trustees aren’t capable of hiring directors of education, either.
On February 16, 2021, I filed an expedited Application with the OHRT alleging adverse effect discrimination because Mr. Hofstatter’s appointment was infringing the rights of racialized students, and it was not reasonable or bona fide considering the current education climate, and I connected this Application to a previous Application I had filed with the Tribunal where my rights, and the rights of other women, were infringed because KPRDSB appointed a male superintendent instead of a female superintendent at a time when they clearly needed more women on their senior leadership team. They created a gender imbalance of 7 men and only 2 women, which was not reasonable or bona fide under the circumstances because they had a very qualified and highly experienced female candidate on their hands – me. This clearly demonstrates that I was discriminated against, and this discrimination is ongoing.
In my second Application to the Tribunal, I asked the Tribunal to order the YCDSB to explain why their hiring appointment of Mr. Hofstatter was reasonable and bona fide under the current education circumstances.
I also asked the OHRT to order Minster Lecce to explain why he allowed the YCDSB to use changes he made to the Education Act to hire more diverse directors of education to better represent the diversity of the student populations they serve, without actually hiring a more diverse director of education, and why Minister Lecce removed the requirement that directors of education must be supervisory officers that are qualified as teachers, but didn't change the Education Act to restrict trustees from hiring panels in school boards across the province when he knows it’s leading to discrimination.
I also requested that the YCDSB return to the hiring table to hire a racialized director of education, and that Minister Lecce immediately be replaced as Education Minister with someone who is more qualified to deal with systemic discrimination in education as well as other educational matters.
And if there are no MPPs who fit the bill, I asked the OHRT to appoint a Supervisor who is qualified and experienced, to oversee the Ministry of Education without government interference until the issues are resolved.
I asked for other remedies as well including generous damages to be paid for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect – not for me – but to Parents of Black Children, an advocacy group formed to support and advocate on behalf of Black students and their parents, to be paid by the York Catholic District School Board.
Since I filed this Application, Mr. Hofstatter has taken part in a virtual workshop on equity where his behaviour so upset a York University professor and a colleague leading the session that a letter was sent to the board cancelling all upcoming training.
Now Mr. Hofstatter is no longer director of education for the YCDSD, and Minister Lecce is blaming the mostly female trustees for this appointment, without taking any responsibility for approving this hiring decision, which is also discriminatory.
And Caitlin Clark is attempting to cover Minister Lecce’s involvement up, which is also discriminatory.
Then, Dr. Oscar Correia, a South Asian educator who took the YCDSB to the OHRT in 2011 for racial discrimination and reprisal – and won – reached out to me when he heard about my Application to the OHRT, and offered his help. I already knew about Dr. Correia’s case, because I had quoted it in my Application to the Tribunal, but it was amazing to speak with him on the phone.
In his Application against the YCDSB, Dr. Correia alleged that he was not appointed a Superintendent position in the YCDSB because of discrimination and reprisal. (Dr. Carreia had previously made allegations of discrimination.)
The OHRT determined that the YCDSB did indeed discriminate and reprise against Dr. Correia. The director of education had used the stereotype of South Asian men as having an authoritarian or “top down” management style, and this was a factor for why she didn’t hire him as superintendent.
The director of education had also regarded Dr. Correia’s allegations of racial discrimination as a “card” that he would play whenever he didn’t get his way or when things didn’t turn out as he had hoped. By doing so, the OHRT noted, the director of education was effectively discrediting Dr. Correia’s allegations as “manipulative ploys to gain a collateral benefit.”
This not only “de-legitimized” Dr. Correia’s experiences, but also suggested Dr. Correia was being manipulative and untruthful, and the OHRT found this was directly related or linked to Dr. Correia’s race, and was also a factor in denying Dr. Correia a superintendent position.
The Tribunal also concluded that no investigation had ever been conducted into Dr. Correia’s allegations.
The Adjudicator ordered the YCDSB to pay compensation for injury to Dr. Correia’s dignity, feelings and self-respect, but the YCDSB was not required to pay Dr. Correia the salary he would have earned as superintendent or any impact to his pension because the Tribunal determined that while Dr. Correia was indeed discriminated and reprised against, there were additional reasons why Dr. Correia was not promoted.
Those additional reasons why Dr. Correia was not promoted were directly linked to other discriminatory acts, but Dr. Correia was not allowed to use that evidence. So that part of his Application was not addressed.
Because the Adjudicator found YCDSB guilty of discrimination and reprisal, the Adjudicator ordered YCSDB to retain an individual with expertise in anti-racism and bias-free interviewing practices and to develop and deliver training on these topics to the Board’s director of education, senior management, and trustees.
This training was to be provided on an ongoing basis to any new appointees to senior management positions at the Board or to newly elected trustees who were involved in interviews for positions of responsibility at the Board, and a short refresher was to be provided every two years for continuing senior management members and trustees who are involved in interviews for positions of responsibility at the Board.
Dr. Correia has the signatures of all the people from the YCDSB who attended the initial equity training in 2012 because the sharing of this information was ordered by the Tribunal. Dr. Correia kept it along with everything else from his Application.
Dr. Correia also shared with me that you, Mr. Case, presented a workshop to the YCDSB in or around 1996, and Dr. Correia attended that workshop. This means the YCDSB has been receiving equity training for the past 25 years, and the YCDSB is still practising discrimination!
This is also why Mr. Hofstatter was participating in Ms. Shah’s and Mr. Saver’s equity training during his first week on the job, and this is the same training where Mr. Hofstatter thought it was appropriate to interrupt the racialized female presenter and tell her his thoughts on anti-racism, which were clearly different than hers, without interrupting the male presenter who was also presenting his thoughts on anti-racism.
This is also the same training that the OHRT ordered new appointees to senior management positions to complete.
Mr. Mazzotta, Chair of the YCDSB, has been a trustee for 10 years. Since the training ordered by the OHRT was to be completed in 2012 and repeated every 2 years, this means Mr. Mazzotta has completed this training 5 times!
It also means Carol Cotton, Vice-Chair of the Board, who has been a trustee for 24 years, has completed this training 5 times!
This means the YCDSB trustees knew what they were doing when they appointed Robert Hofstatter as director of education.
This means the Mr. Hofstatter’s appointment as director of education was not the result of incompetence!
This means Mr. Hofstatter’s appointment as director of education was the result of trustee defiance!
This is the same trustee defiance that Arleen Huggins noted in her Review of the PDSB, and it’s the same trustee defiance noted in the minutes of a Chairpersons’ Committee meeting in the KPRDSB where trustees stated they didn’t want to “readily give in to having their authority removed.” (I gave a copy of these minutes to the OHRT as evidence.)
Furthermore, as elected representatives, boards of trustees are expected to develop policies in an open and accountable way. All of the YRDSB policies and procedures are listed on the Board’s website for the public to see, but not the Board’s hiring policy for directors of education! Why not?
In an email to a constituent obtained by the Toronto Star, York Catholic trustee Elizabeth Crowe said the selection of the director of education is done in private by secret ballot!
Ms. Crowe said it’s to “protect the confidentiality of all the candidates and the process. There is no record of the vote,” she added, saying she couldn’t comment on the race, sex or qualifications of candidates who apply to the position because they are protected by confidentiality.
This secrecy isn’t about confidentiality of all the candidates and the process! This secrecy is about protecting the trustees so no one knows how each individual trustee votes! And this allows systemic discrimination to flourish!
This is the same secrecy school boards operate under when they make victims sign confidentiality agreements, when they issue legal cease-and-desist letters, and make legal applications to silence people!
What’s extraordinary about this story is that the YCDSB offered Dr. Correia $30,000 to settle his case, and Dr. Correia refused the offer because he thought it would be better to be on the record so someone else could cite his case at a later date to strengthen their case!
And it cost Dr. Correia $26,000 in legal fees to ignore the Board’s offer!
What incredible foresight and generosity!
Toward a complete stranger in an unknown future!
When I explained to Dr. Correia that his foresight and generosity are now allowing me to strengthen my case – and I’m bring thousands of Black students from the YCDSB community to the OHRT with me because of the compensation I requested for Parents of Black Children – Dr. Correia was delighted saying when you fight for justice, you aren’t fighting for yourself. You’re fighting for all the other people who will benefit! And he was fighting for his own 3 children who were standing behind him.
Dr. Correia also said there can be no peace without justice, which is absolutely true, and which is why the OHRT needs to order huge financial penalties for any school board that is found guilty of discrimination. This is the only way school boards will stop discriminating against people!
The PDSB Reviewers called for “educators and leaders – including elected leaders – who are aware of their own place in the world and who will bring a higher consciousness and personal commitment” to the work they are doing, and for “a new style of leadership” that has, “through rigorous assessment of its own strengths and weaknesses, demonstrated the capacity to face the evidence of systemic inequity and to grasp the complexity of the issues facing those less able to advocate for themselves.”
Dr. Correia has 7 degrees including a doctorate in education in Multicultural Education from the Department of Applied Psychology from OISE/University of Toronto and is Catholic. He is clearly qualified and experienced, is clearly aware of his own place in the world, has clearly demonstrated a higher consciousness. He is also racialized and is a qualified teacher with supervisory officers qualifications and is in good standing with the Ontario College of Teachers. Dr. Correia should be the Director of Education for the YCDSB!
Now that Mr. Rodrigues has apologized to Kola Iluyomade and the six different community advocacy groups on behalf of the PDSB, when can staff, students and parents in the YCDSB expect an apology from the YCDSB trustees and from Minister Lecce?
When can I expect an apology from KPRDSB, the Ontario College of Teachers, the Ontario Principals’ Council, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, and Minister Lecce?
I’ve convinced Dr. Correia to apply for the director of education position in the YCDSB. Here are his credentials:
https://www.oct.ca/findateacher/memberinfo?memberid=254771
When can Dr. Correia expect an interview?
I will not be charging the YCDSB with a finders’ fee for recruiting Dr. Correia. (Head hunters charge phenomenal fees for recruiting and finding directors of education, so I should, but this is tax payers’ money, which needs to go directly into classrooms to support teachers and students.)
We (myself and the thousands of Black students that I am “informally” representing) will not sign any confidentiality agreements, we will not be scared off with legal cease-and-desist letters, and we expect full financial restitution as well as the fulfillment of all the other remedies I requested including that the Ministry of Education hire a qualified third-party to review the effectiveness of Ontario’s school board governance model as it pertains to systemic discrimination, and the Ministry of Education immediately put a halt to all meetings, activities and functions of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association and the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association until the third-party review is complete and decisions about a new governance model can be made.
I’ve lined up a team of education experts (who shall remain anonymous for now) who are extremely well qualified and able to assist Minister Lecce (or any assigned Supervisor for that matter) with ensuring Ontario’s education system is indeed a world-class education system for many, many years to come.
An associate professor of law at an American University just reached out inviting me to take their master of science in law program because “I’d be a great fit.”
I declined the offer.
So if you need a Supervisor for Minister Lecce…
I look forward to a prompt response.
Yours truly,
Debbie L. Kasman, M. Ed, Policy Studies, OISE/University of Toronto,
Education Re-imagined,
Analyst & Researcher, Author & Speaker
Follow Debbie on Twitter: @debbiekasman and on Facebook: DebbieLKasman
[Editor’s note: Eight days after I posted this letter and sent a copy to York Catholic Trustees, during a special board meeting, Trustees lafrate and Marchese put forth the following motion:
Whereas York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) Policy 404 Teacher Recruitment and Selection (Purpose) states: “The teacher recruitment and selection processes shall be guided by, and advance, the Board’s Mission Statement and core values of equity, diversity and inclusion and shall be conducted in a fair and transparent manner, free from any bias, discrimination, nepotism and cronyism;”
Whereas these principles apply to all YCDSB hiring practices;
Whereas the YCDSB has hiring practices in place and must be committed to continuously reviewing/revising these practices, guidelines and policies, for permanent and contract positions, on a regular basis to ensure fairness, equity and transparency;
Whereas retirements have resulted in numerous senior staff vacancies;
Whereas it is imperative that the filling of these senior staff vacancies be done in accordance with updated hiring process, practices and guidelines;
LET IT BE RESOLVED:
THAT the Board immediately update its policies, processes and guidelines for all hiring of non-unionized staff, contract and permanent, from posting to offer of employment, to ensure that they reflect up to date equitable, inclusive and transparent process, guidelines and procedures.
THAT these processes be endorsed by the Board of Trustees and implemented by May 18, 2021.
THAT additional external resources be made available if needed to meet the May 18, 2021 Board implementation date.
THAT these revised processes be reviewed by the Human Rights and Equity Advisor to ensure they are free from bias and discrimination and reflect Human Rights and Equity Principles.
THAT effective April 22, 2021 a hiring freeze be imposed for all non-unionized vacancies.
THAT the hiring freeze be lifted once the updated hiring process is implemented effective May 18, 2021, or earlier.
On May 5, 2021 Patrick Case, Chief Equity Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister at Ontario’s Ministry of Education reached out to me for a telephone conversation. Mr. Case was hopeful some big changes would be announced within the next few months.
On Friday, June 25, trustees announced that Domenic Scuglia, another white man, would be director of education for York Catholic DSB beginning August 1.
The York Catholic Trustees violated the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal Order when hiring previous directors of education. Click here for details.
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.]