School board disappoints parents: The continued failure to provide solutions over trans teacher's outrageous attire

The Halton District School Board is unable to break with the woke orthodoxy

kayla Lemieux - the shop teacher at the center of what should have been an easy fix, but instead is an international scandal. Way to go HDSB!

By

James Pew

A number of notable happenings occurred last night at the much anticipated meeting of the infamous Halton District School Board (HDSB) - a board that made international headlines last year for allowing a trans teacher (whom I call the Z-cup Bandit), to wear outrageously oversized prosthetic breasts while teaching shop class to teenagers. Among the noteworthy events was a thoughtful delegation by a trans woman, another by lawyer and spokesperson for a parents rights group, a disappointing update from an oblivious and incompetent education director, and an unfortunate incident involving police being called on parents.

This morning, Adrian Humphreys covered the board meeting for the National Post. That report dealt with the police interaction but also focused on the thought-provoking delegation by trans woman Julia Malott - who began by informing the audience that her speech had been censored by the board. Read the NP piece for those details. It’s worth mentioning that Julia Malott had also given a moving delegation early in the week to the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB).

Catherine Kronas, a parents rights advocate and founder of Lighthouse, a network of parents, teachers and concerned citizens who strategize and organize push back against illiberal ideology, attended the meeting last night. She described an “air of hostility.” As reported by the NP, the day had begun with the school receiving a bomb threat, and ended with the police being called to the school board meeting. Prior to yesterday's incident, there had been several bomb threats since the inappropriate shop teacher story broke. What a mess.

Catherine found the general mood to be unsettling. The board in many ways demonstrated their contempt for parents, who were left to languish in the cold outside the building, while board members and administration conducted the first part of their meeting in the warm assembly room inside. No arrangements were made for a waiting area to be provided, instead angry parents toughed it out in the cold, waiting to be let in to a meeting that began forty minutes late.

Not mentioned in the NP piece was a delegation by Rishi Bandhu, a parent and the lawyer for Students First Ontario - the parents group that formed after the school received several bomb threats (apparently in reaction to the board's failure to deal appropriately and professionally with the shop teacher who is neither appropriate nor professional). Parents were already angry, but the bomb threats have made many angrier, and others terrified. They have been left wondering if their kids will be safe at school.

This morning I received an email from Students First Ontario with the subject line “HDSB Director Ennis gets a Failing Grade from Parents on Interim Report.” The email goes on to say:

Unprepared, unresponsive and unconcerned. 

At last night’s HDSB Board meeting, Director Curtis Ennis failed to provide any details or answers related to the Professionalism Policy he is responsible for developing. 

With only 7 school days left before the final policy is due on March 1, Director Ennis revealed that he has yet to even determine which stakeholder groups will be consulted - or how he will capture their feedback. He also made it clear that any approved policy would not be implemented until after the statutory freeze, no-one knows when this will occur.

Parents wanted answers. The Director did not have any. Rather than engage parents and acknowledge their concerns, the police were called and the entire Board went into hiding.

In my view, it has been clear since the beginning that Ennis is the problem. I am an opponent of cancel culture, and I don’t believe that I have ever called publicly for someone to be fired. However, in my view, Director Ennis is a weak and incompetent leader, a living example of the Peter Principle, and he must be let go. He had the power to solve the problem when it first occurred, but his outrageous ineptitude has resulted in this utterly disgraceful chapter in HDSB history.

Returning to Rishi Bandhu’s delegation, which focused primarily on the role of school councils (parent councils).

Rishi had some key points:

• That the HDSB is accountable to parents through school councils. “School councils are a check and a balance..(which) exist in any system of government to remedy any intended or unintended abuses of power.” 

• School council is independent from the board and is not to be managed or interfered with by the board.

• There is no restriction on the scope of the school councils advisory capacity. “School council can advise on any matter,” not just “certain matters,” as the board would have it.

• The HDSB is obliged to ensure that the members of the school council are democratically elected. 

When Rishi finished speaking he was met with robust applause from parents. Shockingly, the Chair, Margo Shuttleworth, dismissed Rishi’s talk by saying it was out of the board’s scope and that parents should take it up with the principal of their school. The hallmark of a woke school board is that they always pass the buck, and are never accountable for anything.

Another trustee spoke up, and pointed out that during Rishi’s speech he referred to “the board.” Which is correct, Rishi did indeed refer to “the board,” and considering the setting, anyone living on planet earth would understand that to mean the Halton District School Board. But apparently that isn’t quite right. That would be too easy. What parents were told next is that there were actually two boards. One, the Halton District School Board, and the other, the Board of Trustees of the Halton District School Board. 

Below is the video of last night’s HDSB meeting. Rishi Bandu’s delegation is at 2:23:40. Julia Malott’s is at 2:14:07.

Too often, when parents, or parent councils bring their concerns forward to a school board, responsibility is either deferred back to an individual school or to the Ontario Ministry of Education, or to some other office in the education complex. Other times, avoidances or excuses for inaction are made by adducing official policies & procedures, codes of conduct, or human rights laws. And when parents question policies that seem confusing, contradicting, or open to interpretation, there appears to be an effort to squash discussion by invoking yet more rules, policies or procedures that come from “high places of authority.”

For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave it at that. There is a lot more about this board worth scrutinizing, so stay tuned. In the meantime, please share this and other Woke Watch Canada articles that exam woke dysfunctional school boards. This will help let these woke trustees and directions of education know that we’re watching them!

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Thanks for reading. For more woke school board analysis by this author, read Will Canadians stand with Josh Alexander?

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