ETSB last meeting before school board elections
The Eastern Townships School Board council of commissioners met Tuesday evening via zoom for a final meeting before the start of the campaign for the Nov. 1 school board elections.
Eleven commissioner positions as well as board chairman are up for grabs. Anyone interested in running for election has until Sunday, Sept. 27 at 10 p.m. to submit their nomination papers.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Student Ombudsman Christian Beaudry submitted his annual report.
Covering the time period from July 1, March 10 (because of school closures), Beaudry said he received 10 complaints.
Of those, seven were redirected because the complainants had not exhausted internal avenues to resolve the issues.
For the remaining three, one involved a complaint regarding services offered to a handicapped student. The complaint was resolved by the secretary general, Beaudry said.
The second was a complaint regarding a private school student using the ETSB’S transportation system. Beaudry said the complaint was not admissible because it was not regarding a student at the board.
The third complaint was about the expulsion of an adult education student from a physics and sciences distance education program. According to Beaudry, the student in question did not meet the deadlines in place to complete the courses. The complaint was referred back to the board.
Based on the complaints he received, Beaudry surmised that the board’s internal system for managing complaints is working well. He added that to his knowledge, no students had been expelled because of violence or bullying incidents in the last year and he had no recommendations for improvements.
ETSB Secretary
General Éric
Campbell pointed out that Ombudsman Beaudry’s contract had been renewed with the ETSB for another three years.
The board approved the appointment of a new principal. Amélie Thériault was appointed to the position of principal of online learning at a 40 per cent workload.
During his Director General’s report, Michel Soucy said that as of Tuesday evening, there had been no positive cases of COVID-19 in any schools or centres in the ETSB.
He thanked staff, students and parents for their diligence. “It has, and will continue, to pay off.
Recognizing the challenges faced by the entire school community this year, Soucy added, “Don’t give up. We have a generation of young people depending on us. Together we will get through this.”
During his report, ETSB Chairman Michael Murray applauded the appellate court’s decision to maintain the stay of application of Bill 40 to English school boards. Murray said based on the strongly worded judgment the provincial government likely wouldn’t appeal the decision, but rather move forward so the case can be heard on its merits.
Murray pointed out that since the adoption of Bill 40, the education ministry has been sending all communications to the board’s DG rather than the chairman.
During question period, Appalachian Teachers’ Association President Megan Seline asked the board if there were funds available to hire additional cleaning staff in schools and lunch supervisors so that teachers can have their entitled 50-minute lunch break.
“It’s all the more important for teachers to have this time,” Seline said, “to get themselves back together.”
DG Soucy said there were no new monies made available for additional cleaning staff or supervision, but the board is looking at internal solutions to address those issues.