Parents continue to be disappointed with the performance of the GECDSB

A review of the April 18th board meeting

By

James Pew

& Elton Robinson

Last week, on April 18th, the Greater Essex County District School Board (GECDSB) held yet another contentious board meeting where parents where silenced and board members contradicted several things they had previously said.

A parent named Jeremy Palko spoke at the board meeting and was not allowed to finish his speech. Trustee Gale Hatfield and Trustee Cathy Cooke were unable to contain their authoritarian impulse, repeatedly interrupting Mr. Palko with “point of order,” and claiming his presentation was too general.

GECDSB Parents are given a mere 5 minutes to present, weather they want to approach a topic they signed up to speak on, in a general or specific way, is their business. But Hatfield and Cooke, as they have shown so often in the past, feel they must control and silence parents who dare question anything related to radically progressive school policies, or the ways in which GECDSB operates.

Instead of acting as if the board were accountable to parents (which they are), Hatfield and Cooke are more likely to openly display their disdain for parents. Nothing is ever done about it. This board repeatedly bullies, disrespects, and silences parents and dissenting trustees, and is never held accountable. In spite of numerous demands for them to apologize to parents and some trustees who advocate for parents (like Trustee Linda Qin), the GECDSB has never apologized for anything.

The behaviour of the GECDSB, especially Hatfield and Cooke, makes it obvious to anyone paying attention that these people do not like parents and seem to resent having to listen to any of their concerns. Is this acceptable to you as a voter?

Trustee Linda Qin again asking why we do not let parents speak.

GECDSB Trustee Julia Burgess is also a Board Member of Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA), in the video below, she does not sound like a fan of Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act that was introduced by the Minister of Education on Monday April 17th.

It is not surprising that the most woke and dysfunctional Ontario school boards - like GECDSB, WRDSB, HDSB, PDSB, TDSB, and more - would resent the decision by the Ontario Ministry of Education to step in and redirect the focus of education in Ontario back to academics. To the woke radicals who sit on these boards, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act throws a wrench in the wheel of their efforts to indoctrinate children into the equity-obsessed Social Justice movement.

Because of my (Elton) experience since September 2022 attending GECDSB meetings, I decided to support Bill 98 - especially the Integrity Commissioner portion.  Trustee Julia Burgess seems not to. Maybe she should review video of the meetings after she sits in them, as it is my opinion that the GECDSB has very little integrity. A provincial Integrity Commissioner may be the solution, as currently we can only address concerns to Trustees, as well, the Trustees are only able to address the Chair. My question is how did the GECDSB allow this when other boards, like the Durham District School Board have an Integrity Commissioner that any citizen or Trustee may report to when they feel integrity has been compromised. (See link below):

In the video below, the GECDSB does not admit any responsibility over the inclusion of an age-inappropriate book called Fun Home, which the board previously asserted was not included in GECDSB libraries. Trustee Qin informed the board that this was mis-information, and that the book was indeed part of the GECDSB collection of books available for students to checkout from the online library portal. (see video below):

For the record here is a video of the March 21, 2023 GECDSB meeting where Trustee Clara Howitt incorrectly stated that Fun Home was not included in GECDSB libraries:

Clearly the GECDSB has a long way to go. It would seem that the Ontario Education Ministry’s new bill 98 was a direct result of the nonsense going on at boards like this. From the mistreatment of parents, the inability to deal with what should be simple issues - like creating lists of new books as they get added to school libraries, or even, knowing which books are in which libraries and whether or not they should be there - this board fails on the simple stuff over and over.

Because the issues around library books, and so many other issues where a rudimentary grasp of decency, what is appropriate for children, and the common sense necessary to solve basic problems is utterly lacking, we will continue to keep a close eye on the GECDSB, and other woke boards, to see if the much welcomed (by parents at least) Bill 98 makes these awful school boards pull up their socks.

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Thanks for reading. For more on the Ontario governments Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, read the analysis by Canadian teacher, and regular Woke Watch Canada contributor, Igor Stravinsky - Ontario Introduces Legislation to Take Greater Control over Education

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