Bateman parent leadership decide they don't want their reasons for seeking an Administrative Review widely known or understood. Figure that one out.

By Pepper Parr

July 25th, 2017

BURLINGTON, ON

School is out and not for just the students.

Much of the staff at the Board of Education are taking their vacations, however there is work that has to be done – one of those tasks is responding to the requests for an Administrative Review made by parents from both Lester B. Pearson and Bateman high school.

It took Bateman some time to organize themselves – were demonstrations like this effective?

Each parent group is preparing their requests separately and when completed they file the request with the Ministry of Education. That was dine early in July.

The Ministry sends a copy to the Board of Education and gives them 30 days to prepare the Board staff response to the parent request for the review.

Board communications people advise use that the task of responding was assigned to a number of senior staff.
That document is due in the hands on the Ministry during the first half of August.

When the Ministry has both sets of documents they sit down and do a review to determine if they, the Ministry, should appoint a facilitator who will be given the task of reviewing the documents and making a decision.

The facilitator can decide that there was nothing wrong with the Program Accommodation Review that took place or he can decide that there were flaws and order the Board to hold another Review. There is a considerable amount of latitude for the facilitator. 

Halton District School Board has been told in the past that the process they used to decide to close a school was not acceptable.

Sometime in September the public should learn what is come to come out of the request for the Reviews.

The Gazette recently published the request that was made by the parents at Lester B. Pearson. It is a strong document and has merit. 

We were not as fortunate with our request for a copy of the document prepared by the Bateman high school parents.

Responding to our request, Lisa Bull, a Bateman parent and a member of the Program Accommodation Review committee, who was a strong and very vocal advocate for more innovation in the thinking from the Board staff, said the following:

You continue to call out/blame the parents of Bateman for not getting into the ‘fight’ soon enough. This is problematic for several reasons. First, it ignores the fact that few parents from any schools other than Central and Pearson attended the first public meeting. How about blaming the HDSB for not adequately or competently explaining WHAT the PSR process was and how it could potentially impact schools and communities? I am an engaged and informed parent and I wasn’t at that first meeting. I did not understand, at that point in time, what PAR was about or why I should care. As you know, the more I learned the more active I became as was the case with many in our community. I blame the HDSB for their lack of competence in community engagement. Not the parents who have proven that they can and will show up when needed.

Ward 5 school board trustee Amy Collard told the Gazette that “communications to parents come directly from the HDSB. All Burlington parents with an email address in our system would have gotten the emails through our synrevoice email system.

Ms Bull, the excuse you give just doesn’t hold water.

For many of the parents of special needs students at Bateman, getting to additional meetings is incredibly difficult. Many of these parents are exhausted by the daily challenges of caring for their kids. To blame them for not getting into this sooner is victim blaming and is behavior that is just as shameful as that of the HDSB.

I know that you believe that our Admin Review document should be made public and that this should be done via the Gazette. This is your opinion and desire but is not a requirement. Given the position that you have taken and the opinions you have published about the Bateman community, our Committee will not be sending our report at this time.

Responses like this are often described as “shooting the messenger”

Bateman parents have struggled with getting their response out which is unfortunate – they have a very strong case but instead of making their case they fell back on emotional arguments and claimed that the Central parents had ‘thrown them under the bus’.

Sharon Picken, a PARC member – never gave as much as an inch in her argument to keep Bateman open.

The Central parents fully understood the risk and pulled together as a team, raised $14,000 in a silent auction to ensure they had any funds they might need and then dug deep and pulled out all kinds facts that the Board staff had missed.

The Central case was so compelling that the Director, with the support of his staff, decided to change the recommendation and ask the trustees to close Bateman and send some of the students to Central and others to Bateman.

Bateman parents weren’t prepared to accept that the Director of Education did what any intelligent person would do – review new information and if the information was valid and relevant change the decision.

The Bateman parents had only to look at the map that showed the distance between Nelson and Bateman to realize that they were at risk for closure.

When the Director of Education revised his decision the Bateman parents began to say that it was because Ward 2 city Councillor Marianne Meed Ward, who had a child at Central high school and was made one of the Central high school representatives on the PARC, had undue influence with the Director.

They alluded to meetings Meed Ward had with the Director of Education and all the communications tools she had as a city Councillor.

What Meed Ward had going for her was her skill as a community organizer.  She worked hard with a dedicated team that was focused and supported by a community that was going to do whatever it took.

PARC member Lisa Bull who was one of the better thinkers on that committee.

Bateman had skills of its own.  Lisa Bull was also a member of the PARC and she was consistent in her drive to get the Board staff and the trustees to look at the problem the Board faced with fresh eyes and not take a simple solution: – too many schools – close a school or two and the problem is solved.

The Bateman parents know it is n’t quite that simple and the tragedy for this city is that the trustees were not able to see a solution within the more than 50 delegations made.

Bateman was fortunate in that they had the best trustee there is on the Board.  Amy Collard bust her buns to sway her fellow trustees and gave the Director of Education more than one uncomfortable moment when she did her level best to get her motion on the table and ensure that it was properly and fully debated.

Collard, serving her second term as a trustee, was acclaimed on both occasions.  She should be acclaimed a third time.

When Bateman realized it had a fight on its hands they did some superb community grass roots work.  They got excellent television coverage but they were not able to catch the ears of a majority of the trustees.

It was at this point that the public began to get a glimpse of just what the Community Pathways Program was really about and how unfortunate the impact was going to be on the parents who had children in those programs.

We don’t know what the Bateman parents chose to say in their request for an Administrative Review. The document is public and the Gazette will use the provincial Freedom of Information process to get a copy and publish the details.

Ward 5 school board trustee Amy Collard.

The tragedy in all this is that there are several hundred students who will experience significant upset and turmoil in their lives.  There are parents who believed they had finally found a school that met the needs of their children.  All that is at risk.

The Board staff has said they will provide the Bateman parents and their children with facilities and a level of service that will be better than what they currently have.

The saving grace in all this is that the Bateman parents have a trustee who will be watching very closely to ensure that the students don’t go without.

What Collard is not going to be able to change is the social environment in the school they are being transferred to – that is the real challenge for everyone.