Why is the Peel board director still employed?
As hundreds marched toward the Peel District School Board Wednesday evening in a protest against anti-Black racism, a group of youngsters gathered around two people with microphones and chanted: “Fire Peter Joshua. Fire Peter Joshua.”
Joshua is the embattled director of education at the school board, the man who sat coolly surveying his board from the top seat, apparently oblivious to the leaping fires beneath.
A few hours later, at its public meeting, the Peel school board trustees made a historic vote — a unanimous one — to ask the Ministry of Education to take control of the board and send a supervisor to oversee them.
It’s an acknowledgment that they had failed miserably in tackling systemic anti-Black racism. Thursday morning, Ontario’s education minister, Stephen Lecce, agreed.
The vote brings the youths’ demand closer to fruition.
This moment in the saga of resistance by Peel Region’s Black communities that has played out publicly for nine months should put on notice all companies issuing pretty statements committing to anti-racism: Platitudes don’t cut it. People want accountability.
Look at what it took for the Peel board to get to this point:
1. The board appoints its first woman of colour in a senior leadership position in 2017.
Turned out the board was unprepared when she did what she was hired to do. Equity chief Poleen Grewal consulted with Black communities and educators and oversaw the creation of We Rise Together, a strategic action plan to support Black students. A key component of the plan: deep anti-Black racism training across the system. This has yet to happen.
A simple suggestion from Grewal that teachers apply an anti-oppression lens to teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” for instance, was too much for some staff, who turned to the media, which for the most part criticized the move. Months later, Grewal would go on to say in a human rights complaint against the board and Joshua that the board was unnerved and did not support her publicly. She also alleged she faced reprisals for complaining. The board denied the allegations.
2. Two women of colour on the board of trustees disrupt the status quo.
In October, trustee Kathy McDonald, supported by Nokha Dakroub, publicly raised the issue of a fellow trustee calling McCrimmon school students “McCriminal.” It’s an example of casual racism that had required a quick, heartfelt apology; trustee Will Davies could have just apologized as soon as McDonald called him out in private, or when she called him out publicly, or when the community pressed for an apology. Instead, the board dug in its heels, the case went to an integrity commissioner who exonerated him to widespread fury in the community. The commissioner’s contract was recently terminated.
3. Black communities step up and keep the pressure on.
None of this would have stayed in the public eye without Black parents, students and community members who showed up to public meeting after public meeting, sharing their own experiences, often of trauma, sometimes through tears, sometimes with jeers at the inaction that continued despite Joshua’s pretty words of reassurance. Two Black men — seen as the organizers — were penalized; one warned and the other banned from PDSB properties. At one point, the board even called the police during a meeting, alleging threats. Instead of seeing the community’s presence as a call for action, the board chair said “the community is after us,” one report would find.
4. The Ministry of Education steps in.
A ministry review in March found glaring issues of anti-Black racism among other systemic inequities in the board, mediations it called for collapsed and finally an all-guns-blazing report by lawyer Arleen Huggins gave the board a fat F grade for non-compliance with ministry-mandated recommendations.
5. Community organizations add their voice.
At least 18 Black community organizations wrote a letter to the board seeking the ouster of Joshua in March. The National Council of Canadian Muslims and Muslim Council of Peel added their voices last week saying, “We make this call today because we are left with no other choice in this context.” This week, the Ontario Gurdwaras Committee urged Joshua to resign, calling the followup report by Huggins “shocking and horrific.” On Thursday, the Tamil Civic Action called for his “immediate resignation” and urged the ministry to ensure that any supervisor it appoints have “depth and experience” to address anti-Black racism.
And still. The director remains in office. In a statement Monday, the board said a former provincial education commissioner, Avis Glaze, was to serve the board “effective immediately” as an “impartial critical adviser to Joshua, providing candid feedback” on anti-racism. But the director’s office already has an anti-racism head in associate director Grewal. Why should taxpayers shell out money because of Joshua’s personnel issues? Why does a man, who, when he got his job pledged to support marginalized students, get to keep it when it’s clear he needs one-onone training to do it?
At Wednesday night’s public meeting, Joshua walked back on that statement around hiring Glaze and said the outside consultant was “in concept” at this point. A board statement Thursday said: “Dr. Glaze considers it necessary to take time to review all reports and ministry directives before engaging in a formal process with the board.”
This sounds suspiciously like she’s not taking up the job. Since he can’t do it without her help, he must give up his.