By Pepper Parr
October 18th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Steve Armstrong, one of the leads on the request for an Administrative Review of the Halton District School Board decision to close two of Burlington’s seven high schools, thinks that the Ministry of Education decision to appoint Margaret Wilson as the Facilitator was an “excellent” move.
“I’m looking forward to working with her, and the Board, towards a healthy discussion about the process Burlington went through. There is considerable room for improvement in a number of key areas, and I know a good number of fellow PAR Committee members see similar opportunities.
Although the exact details of how Ms Wilson wants to proceed haven’t been shared, with her experience I trust it will be thorough, said Armstrong.
He added that he learned recently that the two Burlington requests for Administrative Reviews are the only ones that have been approved out of the 12 applications from across the province so far this year.
“Clearly the Ministry of Education also wants to understand more about the actual execution of the HDSB Burlington Secondary School PAR.”
The government of Ontario has put a hold on starting new accommodation reviews, and has already begun an improvement process.
Perhaps one of the outcomes of our specific review might include a recommendation to test a better process.
There is within people that are angry over the decision the Board made the sense that the Facilitator can reverse the decision – that is not the case.
The Facilitator can recommend to the Ministry that they direct the Board to hold a new PAR. The only people who can reverse the decision are the 11 trustees.
Each of the high schools Bateman and Pearson, have taken different approaches to the request for a Review.
Bateman is believed to be talking a “human right” approach while Pearson is questioning the procedure that was used and the way critical information was not available to the public.
Wilson started her job earlier this week – there is no word yet on when she might file her report.
Director of Education Stuart Miller has said that these reviews tend to be “paper heavy” and there are certainly a lot of documents to be gone through and a lot of questions for the staff on how they handled the PAR process.
The two parent groups, Pearson and Bateman, have not, at least not so far, chosen to work together. The Bateman crowd has chosen to keep to themselves.
Armstrong believes it is in the best interests of the community if the two at least communicate with each other.
Pearson Administrative Review Request
The facilitator will only be talking to the people that are directly involved in the Admin Review, the PARC reps for the school and the Trustees.
I’m also hoping for a transparent & thorough review. One that takes into account ALL sides of this process, including talking to parents that were directly involved with the process that support the Board & agree with the decision made in June.
Exactly, well said.