Change in York board must start at the top
Re ‘Reprehensible’ to suggest another side to racist comment, Feb. 14
In her letter to the Star, Charline Grant alludes to her family’s preoccupying distractions by real despair, worry, upset and fear resulting from their experience with officials of the York Region District School Board. As reported by the Star, their experience is shared by many families served by the York board.
No family, anywhere, should ever have to endure fear and upset such as this in relation to their children’s education. Those of us whose heritage has anthropologically been routinely characterized as Caucasian must be extremely circumspect in pretending to somehow understand what Grant’s family and families in parallel circumstances are going through. The York board and provincial ministry need to take seriously not only the concerns of those families, but their suggested remedy as well.
Provincial authorities need to act on Grant’s assertions that “change starts at the top,” and that parents seeking change “will never invest hope in change, while the two most symbolic leaders of an old and discriminating demagogy cling to their seats and their privileges.”
The first commitment of school trustees and directors of education as universally declared is the well-being of the students they serve; it has never been the service of their own self-interest. If their responsibilities in leadership and their obligations to the families they serve in York Region mean anything to them at all, trustee Nancy Elgie and director J. Philip Parappally will resign with dispatch and respect. James McKnight, St. Catharines
Just enough silliness?
Re Trump’s press secretary just called Justin Trudeau ‘Prime Minister Joe Trudeau of Canada,’ Feb. 14 According to White House press secretary Sean Spicer, following his meeting with the president, Mr. Trudeau spoke with American pop star Joe Timberlake, Canadian singer Joe Bieber and was joe time for a chat with Canuck baseball stars Joe Verlander and Joe Morneau. Louis Desjardins, Belleville