TDSB begins director search, again
Trustees urged to ‘get it right’ after five directors in 17 years
It should be an educator’s dream job: heading the largest school board in the country.
But what could be the jewel in Canada’s educational crown has been tarnished by years of controversy. And here go Toronto District School Board trustees again, facing another talent search to replace embattled director Donna Quan, who is leaving suddenly next month to do research for Queen’s Park.
Her successor will be the board’s sixth director of education since it was created in 1998 and all but one left amid controversy, making the position that much harder to fill.
“We are holding the interviews next to a pool, and anybody who can swim to the other side without sinking, we’ll take them,” quipped longtime Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher.
The committee of five trustees who will meet Wednesday to start the search for an interim replacement — within three short weeks — are hoping for serious, high-quality contenders. But critics say trustees will need new hiring smarts to get it right — especially for the permanent director, for whom the search could start as early as the New Year.
“Trustees need to look in the mirror before they do anything,” said professor Charles Pascal of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, a former deputy minister of education and college president.
“They need to reflect, with the help of independent facilitation, on the mistakes they’ve made regarding hiring, supervising and mentoring their directors, because their track record has been abysmal for far too long.”
Yet with 11 new trustees elected to the board last fall, “my hope is this is a symbol of a board that is getting better at governing.”
Of Quan’s three associate directors, only Christopher Usih has the required teaching and supervisory credentials to qualify as interim director, and he was appointed just last year on an interim basis. Under On- tario’s Education Act, directors must have been teachers and school board supervisory officers — a rule that cost the TDSB a promising university professor candidate a few years ago — and board sources hoped the province might bend this rule in future.
However, a spokesperson for Education Minister Liz Sandals said Tuesday the minister has “no plans to change the requirement.”
Outside the board, “some extremely talented directors of big boards have retired in the past few years,” noted Pascal, “and I think they would provide a good pool.”
But with executive salaries frozen, fewer senior educators are willing to uproot their families to switch boards, warned Frank Kelly, executive director of the Council of Ontario Directors of Education.
“Those numbers are down. People seem more comfortable staying in the second level of management and figure the aggravation of a director’s job is more than it’s worth,” he said. Of 14 new directors at Ontario school boards this year, most were promoted from within their own board.
Some potential applicants may also be intimidated by the TDSB’s size, said Kelly. “They think it’s too big to be managed effectively, but I disagree. Large boards come with a lot more help than small boards.”
Former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall has completed a report on the future of the TDSB — due out by Christmas — that could suggest breaking it into smaller parts.
Pascal said he hopes the province’s appointment of Quan to a research project based at York University “isn’t Step One” to breaking up the board. “That misses the point,” he warned. “It’s not the size of the board (that’s the problem) but it’s about having good leadership on the direc- tor level.”
At Queen’s Park on Tuesday, Sandals denied Quan’s posting was a soft landing for a controversial figure at a dysfunctional board.
“I don’t look on this as a reward about things that have gone on in the past,” said Sandals, noting Quan is an expert on using demographic data, the focus of her research.
Annie Kidder of the advocacy group People for Education urged trustees to look for a director who has a broader view than just academic achievement: “someone who gets that education has a connection to health and community and students’ well-being — a broader vision.” With files from Robert Benzie