Teachers’ Niagara trip scrutinized

Taxpayers will foot the bill for an overnight retreat last week in Niagara Falls for19 Mississauga teachers and administrators, who held a professional development day steps from Fallsview Casino.

With public spending under the microscope, including Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s business trip to Chicago, Vaughan city council’s trade mission to Italy, and wage freezes and spending cuts across Ontario school boards, some might say a Niagara retreat may not have been the best PR gambit.

“Some would say the optics aren’t good,” said Peter Ferreira, one of three trustees for St. Aloysius Gonzaga Secondary School in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

The school board said the approximate $5,500 bill — which covered accommodation, food and supply teachers for the retreat held on Thursday and Friday — was a savings compared to a local retreat.

Bruce Campbell, spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel board, said that by heading to Niagara Falls after school Thursday and working that night, the board avoided paying for two days’ worth of supply teachers.

The trip did not use student funds, Campbell added.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga has1,800 students and an annual budget of approximately $570,000, $45,000 of which is set aside for PD days.

The overnight retreat at the Niagara Falls Hilton brought Principal Laura Green, three vice-principalsand 15 teachers to Niagara to plan for the current school year.

Campbell said the out-of-town retreat helps the teachers bond while they plan the year, focus departments and help align the school’s overall strategy. “This is no holiday,” Campbell said.

And perhaps it’s a good bet for St. Aloysius Gonzaga, one of five schools in the province named in the Provincial Reports of the Education Quality and Accountability Office as a model for improvements in student achievement.

But both Ferreira and Sharon Hubin, another trustee for the Mississauga school, were surprised the PD wasn’t held in the school.