John Malloy to take reins of troubled TDSB
Interim education director ‘not afraid of challenges’ in helping staff improve system
No supervisor, no deadline, no ultimatum.
Education Minister Liz Sandals says now that the Toronto District School Board has hired an outsider to lead it for the next 18 months — in fact, one of her own assistant deputy ministers, John Malloy — she is keen to see the board start implementing some of the 20 recommendations made in a recent, hard-hitting report on its future.
But a one-year deadline and a looming threat of breaking it up into two or three smaller boards isn’t necessary to get things on the right track, she said in an interview.
“I think it’s important to look at the context in which the panel made that recommendation,” she said of the governance committee headed by former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall. “It talks about the fact that they don’t believe the board can make the changes it needs to make without external leadership.”
But since the report was submitted in late August, a new chair has been elected and divisive director Donna Quan has resigned to take part in a ministry research project at York University.
“The chair of the board comes from the new blood on the board,” Sandals said of the 11new trustees elected last fall in the municipal election. “The chair is clearly interested in how the board can do a better job. And with Donna Quan leaving, and then (on Wednesday night) the appointment of John Malloy as interim director, they now actually do have strong leadership, with an external viewpoint.
“The problem that the panel said has to be solved in order for the board to move forward, has happened.”
Speaking to the media on Thursday from TDSB headquarters, Malloy seemed unfazed about being hired to sit in the hot seat.
“I’m not afraid of challenges,” said the former director of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. “I plan to listen quickly and listen carefully, and moving forward, I’m confident we can work together for the good of our students.”
Malloy starts Jan. 4 and will be paid $272,000 — the same as outgoing director Quan, who was forced to trim her salary back because it violated the provincial pay freeze.
Malloy, 52, said his counselling background has driven a passion for student health through his 30-year career, but he also believes a sense of well-being is important for staff, which could be key at a board in which there have long been reports of a “culture of fear.”
Part of his mandate will be to change the environment at the board. Sandals said although the Hall report suggested a supervisor help do that, they are best at fixing financial troubles and are “much less successful at changing the culture.”
She also expects the board to address its top-heavy administration, by creating three regional education centres and reassigning senior superintendents to instead oversee a maximum of 20 schools, giving principals, staff and parents a closer connection to the board.
The move is modelled on the set-up at other boards, such as York public, and for Toronto is a way of not breaking up the board but eliminating the “disconnect” so many participants told the Hall panel about.
The board can also deal with other recommendations, but some — such as implementing term limits — are off the table. Giving student trustees a binding vote “gives me some pause,” Sandals also said.
However, loosening the rules for who is eligible to be a director of education will be up for broader consultation, as it affects other boards.
“I expect that those things they can move ahead with (they will),” she said of Malloy and the TDSB. “I just want them to think about how to do it right without having to think of deadlines.”