Parents Voice Concern over Lifted PDSB Supervision

An anonymous teacher's response to attempts to mislead

Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

By Igor Stravinsky (an anonymous Canadian high school teacher)

(Below is the unpublished letter Igor wrote to the Brampton Guardian concerning the Peel District School Board article cited below. The Brampton Guardian was not brave enough to publish this perspective, but Woke Watch Canada is…)

I am a PDSB teacher who must remain anonymous as expressing the opinions below could result in discipline against me by the board.

Regarding the article "Parents Voice Concern over Lifted PDSB Supervision." The title of this article is a bit misleading because the “parents” are also activists who share a common world view and vision for education. This vision, based on Critical Theory, holds that our society, and thus the school system, is an oppressive system of white supremacy. This view, and the antidote they are advocating for, is controversial and not supported by most Canadians. As such, the piece lacks balance.

The article says that David Bosveld wants all the directives from the PDSB review (conducted by three like-minded people almost three years ago) to be fully implemented. But wouldn’t it make more sense for the new board to be given some latitude by the Ministry of Education to take stock of what has happened over the past three years, then take a second look at those directives. Some may still be sensible, others questionable, and others clearly inadvisable, given what has happened in the schools over this time. Are these directives to be set in stone for all time, with no future elected board allowed to make any changes to them at all?

For example, one of the directives was to “de-stream” grade 9 and 10. This means putting virtually all students in the same large Math, English, and Science (and other) classes regardless of their academic aptitude and achievement. It would be wise to check in with teachers and school administrators to see how this is going. Has this change been a benefit to student learning and academic achievement? What success criteria are being used to even make such a determination?

Tope Adefarankan laments that “the community was not consulted before supervision was lifted”. She is of course not talking about the broader community of Peel residents, but rather her small coalition of like-minded race-conscious black people and their allies. She is, in fact, an “anti-racism, equity, and diversity” consultant. What does that mean, in this context?

“Anti-racism” means allocating power and resources to people deemed marginalized, in this case black students. It assumes a white supremacist power structure and structural racism against black students exists, and is responsible for the lower academic achievement (as a group) and greater incidence (again as a group) of behaviors resulting in discipline seen among black students. 

Based on this assumption, anti-racism demands that more opportunities and resources be directed towards black students than others in order to generate equal outcomes between blacks and other groups, achieving “equity”. But is this really a white supremacist society? And, assuming it is, has this strategy been working to improve “equity”? Finally, how has it impacted overall learning conditions and academic achievement?

“Diversity” means people with a range of physical appearance, but a diversity of ideology is absolutely not tolerated. In the PDSB, woe betide anyone who doesn't align with the tenets of Critical Theory, regardless of their race. 

Christine Diaz expresses that she wants “parents or parent communities [to be able to] speak at board meetings..[and be] allowed to express issues and concerns…” which is a laudable aspiration, but is something that was sorely lacking during the nearly 3 years of board supervision. Parents who expressed concerns about the board’s exclusionary and divisive race-based approach were not welcome and their delegations were not responded to and were deleted from the record. 

Maybe what these community activists are really afraid of is that the duly elected board may in fact start listening to the whole community, embrace traditional social justice values, and advocate for one human race, individual civil rights and liberties, and compassionate opposition to racism and intolerance rooted in dignity and our common humanity.

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Thanks for reading. For more of this authors analysis of the PDSB’s lifted supervision, read The PDSB's black student success strategy

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