Fess up on trips
Something’s rotten in the region of York.
So impoverished are schools across the region that they’re asking parents to donate school supplies and tissue boxes. Despite this, last month alone a number of trustees made taxpayer-funded trips to Europe for “professional development.” Three trustees travelled to Finland in September, one for the second time, another for the third. Two other officials went to Holland. The board could buy a lot of tissue boxes for that kind of money. This isn’t the first time York trustees have travelled into the realm of dubious spending. In 2012, the education ministry reprimanded the board after a parent discovered trustees had spent more than $130,000 on trips to Finland, New Zealand and London. The minister at the time imposed a six-month moratorium on international travel. Apparently the lesson was not learned.
Trustees are allocated $8,490 for professional development, including travel to other jurisdictions of interest, over their four-year term. Trips to places such as Finland, which has among the best education systems in the world, may well be edifying and inform policy improvements. But at a time of restraint, when the board is asking parents to donate supplies, how can it justify multiple international trips for multiple trustees and their staffers?
Sadly, we have no idea. The public has been made aware of the junkets only because concerned board insiders decided to sound the alarm. Even some trustees are confused about the purpose of the travel. “There is no follow up after the trip, or explanation as to why we are going,” longtime trustee Susan Geller warned in an email to Markham residents, obtained by the Star. Asked for information on the trips, a spokesperson for the board refused even to confirm they took place.
Given the current fiscal context and trustees’ history of impropriety, that isn’t good enough. The Toronto District School Board requires that all official trustee travel be approved by committee before it goes to a board meeting for a vote. York’s board should adopt at least that measure of oversight and transparency, lest its claims of poverty start to look corrupt.