Tape proves I was no bully, Blackburn says
Public school board trustee Donna Blackburn says she did not bully a volunteer during a public meeting and she has the tape recording to prove it.
It’s the latest twist in Blackburn’s fight against the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s code of conduct, which she says is being used to try to shut her up. Trustees who support the code say it’s needed to hold colleagues to account for bad behaviour. Since September, trustees have filed four complaints against Blackburn.
The latest concerns an argument Blackburn had with the volunteer chair of the board’s advisory committee on special education, Rob Kirwan.
Trustee Christine Boothby complained that Blackburn “publicly belligerently berated” Kirwan at a meeting in December. Blackburn’s comments “went far beyond acceptable behaviour” and were intimidating and “personally disrespectful,” said Boothby’s complaint. “We cannot allow our volunteers to be publicly berated.”
Boothby filed a second complaint against Blackburn for violating the confidentiality provisions in the conduct code by talking to the media about the first complaint.
Blackburn said she handed over a tape recording of the meeting to board chair Shirley Seward. She wants Seward to either throw out Boothby’s complaints as frivolous or move ahead quickly with a formal investigation, which she is confident will vindicate her. “I didn’t do anything wrong in that meeting.”
A mediator hired by the board met separately with Blackburn and Seward. Blackburn said that was a waste of time and money.
The recording of the meeting doesn’t show body language or facial expressions, but it should be enough to prove that her behaviour did not warrant “code of conducting,” Blackburn said. She was “assertive to be sure, bordering on aggressive, perhaps,” she said in a letter to Seward.
“Does my behaviour merit a very expensive, divisive investigation? Absolutely not!!!”
Blackburn wrote that she would be happy to sit down with Kirwan and have a facilitated conversation to “discuss in a safe place what has transpired and why.”
And, she added, Boothby was “aggressively challenging people who had a differing view than hers, in addition to giving people dirty looks,” at the same meeting.
The political backdrop? Staff had recommended changing programs for gifted children, including reducing the number of specialized classes. Parents with children in the classes were upset and launched an intensive lobbying campaign. Boothby, who has spoken about how her own daughter benefited from classes for the gifted, planned to ask trustees to halt plans for public consultation on the issue.
At the advisory committee meeting, Blackburn said trustees had heard loud and clear from parents of children in gifted classes, but that it would be “highly irresponsible” not to seek opinions from others. She urged the committee to take a position on Boothby’s motion.
In the five-minute exchange, Kirwan repeatedly said the committee would not discuss the issue because it wasn’t on the agenda. Blackburn said the committee should rearrange the agenda because the issue was important. (She says she had already sent him an email making that request.)
“So you’re not going to deal with it?” asked Blackburn.
“Excuse me, I’m speaking,” replied Kirwan, adding that Blackburn had to respect the committee.
“I am. That’s why I want their
opinion,” she replied.
Blackburn said she began recording committee meetings to protect herself because she feared trustees would use the code of conduct to try to silence her sometimes unpopular opinions. “I went out and bought a recorder because I knew this was going to happen.”
Both Seward and Boothby have
refused to discuss the matter because code of conduct investigations are supposed to be confidential.
“This is a private process, and therefore I am not prepared to talk about this in public,” Seward said in an email.
“The Board believes that the conduct of its members is integral to the quality of work, the reputation and the integrity of the Board of Trustees,” Boothby said in a statement. “The policy provides that the process for dealing with complaints either informally or formally is confidential until the matter is before the Board of Trustees for a decision. In accordance with this policy, I will not be speaking publicly on any complaint.”
As for Kirwan, he has said he did not feel intimidated by Blackburn’s comments. But he agrees her behaviour was inappropriate.
Many large school boards in Ontario have codes of conduct.
In Waterloo Region, the district school board is studying whether to change its code to stop trustees from using it against each other so often. Six of the 11 trustees have been embroiled in “squabbles and spats over who said what to whom,” according to a report in the Waterloo Region Record newspaper. “Three times in a year, one trustee has accused another of breaching a code of conduct over words said privately or publicly.”
Kitchener trustee Mike Ramsay said the code’s unusual provisions that trustees must “inspire public confidence” in the board and uphold its reputation have constrained his ability to criticize faltering student achievement, the paper reported.