Travel ban urged for York Region trustees
Scathing report finds ‘astounding’ lack of concern for use of public funds at scandal-plagued board
York Region trustees and senior staff — including the director of education — should be banned from all international travel amid growing concerns about where they are going and why many have made repeat trips, says a report to be released today on the scandal-plagued public school board.
Sources told the Star the two ministry reviewers ordered to probe the troubled board found trustees’ lack of concern for their use of public funds “astounding.”
The “full moratorium” is one of the many recommendations of a much- anticipated report by Patrick Case and Sue Herbert that will touch on a number of controversies first reported in the Star around the board’s inaction on racism and Islamophobia, as well as a worsening culture of fear within the board.
The reviewers heard concerns from many community members about the cost of the trips, including some staff and trustees making multiple visits to the same location with no clear purpose.
They recommend that no travel be approved until plans have been discussed publicly at board meetings, with the reason for the trips clearly stated, that trips “be clearly linked to the board’s priorities,” and that a clear approval process be put in place, sources say.
Trustees will also be taken to task for failing to hold each other, and staff, to account, with a call for travel costs to be reimbursed only after a report about the trip is posted on the board’s website and presented at a public meeting.
The board spent more than $150,000 from 2014 to 2016 on trips to London, Finland and Hawaii
Currently, travel does not need approval at a meeting — indeed, one trip by the director and former chair was largely kept secret — nor are details about information gleaned on trips required to be shared publicly, though in recent weeks the board has done so for a couple of trips, due to public pressure.
Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has repeatedly said the reviewers’ job is to help improve public confidence in the York Region District School Board, which has been shattered in recent months. She will publicly respond to the report on Tuesday afternoon.
Travel troubles are not new for the board. In 2012, under then-chair Anna DeBartolo, the board was criti- cized after it was discovered that more than $130,000 was spent on visits to Finland, New Zealand and London. At the time, the education minister intervened and ordered a six-month moratorium on travel.
The Star documented the trustees’ lack of transparency around travel last fall, after one trustee travelled to Europe three times, and the education director J. Philip Parappally went to the Netherlands with one staff member and DeBartolo, without informing his colleagues.
Just last month, documents obtained under freedom of information legislation revealed that the board spent more than $150,000, from 2014 to 2016, on trips to London, Finland and Hawaii.
Some 15 people went to London on the taxpayers’ dime in 2015, includ- ing the board’s communications and finance directors.
Parents have questioned the value of such trips, as trustees are not educators and do not create curriculum.
“I am hard-pressed to figure out what administrative staff can deliver to a classroom,” York Region dad Todd Silverman has told the Star.
In the past, the board has defended the practice of including senior staff on the trips, saying “learning firsthand the services the other high-performing jurisdictions provide direct- ly to schools is beneficial to department-based staff as well as those working directly in schools.”
At the end of January, Hunter appointed two troubleshooters to look into the issues plaguing the board.
During the past three months, Case and Herbert have conducted more than 75 interviews involving about 140 people, including parents, community members, students, current and former staff, unions, professional associations and trustees, according to a ministry spokesperson. An additional 280 individuals and groups have reached out through email.
Their report is expected to make a number of recommendations in light of a series of complaints from parents about discrimination against black students, a principal’s anti-Muslim Facebook posts and concerns about the board’s ineffective equity policies.
Staff have also told the Star about morale issues, amid an exodus of senior staff, and a growing “climate of fear” at the board.
Questions have also arisen around the director’s unprecedented 10-year contract and job-for-life provision awarded to him by trustees in 2014.
More recently, the board has come under fire after trustee Nancy Elgie used a racial slur in referring to a black parent, taking months to deal with it as frustrations in the community mounted — and finally resulting in a human rights complaint filed by the parent against the board late last month.
Elgie apologized for the slur and resigned in February.