Sheila Ward: you almost got it right

Ah Sheila.

You’ve been a trustee for decades and you still don’t understand your roll. Well according to the Toronto Star’s Article, School boards fear loss of independence you are now complaining that if Don Drummond’s school boards  recommendation are implemented it would not only affect the quality of education but also further erode trustee’s independence.

“If they wanted to do that, why don’t they just do away with us?” She cries.

Well, they probably should. Trustees don’t really add much to the education system any more.

What independence?

Trustees are the anal sphincter of politics. They are politicians with out power, puppets dangling on the end of provincial financial strings who can be and have been usurped by Queens Park on an moment’s notice when they do not behave exactly as the Ministry wants.

This has been the case since 1997 when Harris ripped the cash cow of property taxes, that Boards used to levee, away. That stripped trustees of all of their legislative power and has lowered the standard of service locals that schools gave to their communities just as you predicted but 15 years before you realized it.

Boards now have to fit their system into an increasingly tightened provincial funding formula that forces you to squeeze facilities, pools, parent programs etc.

When you sat through ARC meetings  that closed Regent Park/Duke of York Public School, you were doing the Ministry’s will.

When you voted for the expensively unproductive Toronto Lands Corporation that seeks to sell off close schools, you were doing the Ministry’s will.

When you try to fire teaching assistants to balance the budget, you were doing the Ministry’s will.

And don’t fancy that you have special knowledge as a trustee that the province cannot and has not bought.

The Ministry must be very pleased with you.

I remember when, as a trustee, I saw a retired North York board official hired by the Ministry to inform them about all of Toronto’s schools in 1984 because they were extending funding to the separate board.

And did he know about them. He knew where the caretaker stashed the school snow shovel in almost 600 schools in North York and the 5 other former boards. He knew that because we had used him to spy on the other boards so that North York could negotiate from sound knowledge under the Metro system.

So don’t be deluded into thinking that trustees then or now have “the knowledge… of facilities.” You don’t and the Ministry can buy it and has bought it.

The difference is that before 1887, trustees could and did levee taxes like all levels of government. The only reason we have elections is to give the taxpayers control over government spending. It has been that way since Magna Carta. But you, as a trustee, do not have that power any more.

Using that taxing power, Trustees (note the capital for the pre-1997 title) built community pools, provided child care, staffed parent centres and made outdoor education an important part of urban education.

So, Sheila, you almost got it right.

Trustees lost that autonomy that you are now crying for a decade and a half ago.

You just did not notice it.

 

Also see Why Trustees are useless.