By Pepper Parr
August 20th, 2018
BURLINGTON, ON
The election that will decide who the Mayor of Burlington will be for the 2018 – 2021 term of office is attracting a lot of attention. The high profile offices usually get a lot of attention when an incumbent just might be getting the boot.
Burlingtonians have two very different choices if they decide that current Mayor Rick Goldring has done his bit. Ward 2 city Councillor Marianne Meed Ward has her hat in the ring and former city Councillor and Member of Parliament Mike Wallace are candidates for Mayor. Aldershot resident Greg Woodruff has also announced his candidacy.
While those top spots are important – the critical level of municipal government for households with children is our school board which is Regional in nature.
The Board that is seeking re-election is the Board that voted to close two of the city’s seven high schools when it was not crystal clear that those schools had to be closed.
The school closings are what the Board administration wanted. The Director of Education changed his position once he had compelling data from Central high school parents. It isn’t clear why the Board staff did not spot what Central parents discovered.
Because of the doubt the Board trustees did have the option of voting to not close any of the high schools at the time and to wait for a few years to see just what high school enrollment was going to be.
The very significant intensification Burlington is going through makes it clear that we are going to see more people living in Burlington. Some of those people will be families and some of those families will have children and some of those children will be high school students.
In the process of closing Robert Bateman and the Lester B. Pearson High schools the trustees did two things that have done almost irreparable harm to the community. Bateman had a Community Pathways Program that provided an essential educational program for students that deserve as much opportunity as any other student.
Moving the program to Nelson is filled with problems.
Few, other than the parents who had children in the program, knew about the vital role CPP played in the lives of disadvantaged students.
On the several student events that the Gazette covered at the school we didn’t hear a word about CPP; but as the PAR process rolled out it became clear that the program was essential for a group of families.
When the decision to close Bateman was announced those parents erupted as well they should have. Had they made their case earlier in the process a different outcome might have been possible.
The Central high school parents did their homework and pointed out how expensive (never mind how disruptive to student life) it was going to be to bus their students. The Board looked at the numbers Central provided and agreed and took Central off the close list.
They then put Bateman on the list; their response was to claim the Central parents had “thrown them under the bus”.
The closing of Bateman has been pushed back two years.
Ward 5 Halton District School Board trustee Any Collard
With nominations closed – parents now know who has come forward to serve at the Board of Education level. There are a couple of bright spots. The acclamation of Amy Collard in ward 5 assures the public that there will be at least one strong voice coming from Burlington.
Parent Diane Miller delegating to Administrative Review Facilitator Margaret Wilson.
The entry of Diane Miller for the ward 3 seat is good news. Ms Miller made a very strong delegation to Margaret Wilson, the Facilitator appointed by the province to carry out an Administrative Review of the process used by the Halton District school Board to arrive at it’s decision to close two of the city’s seven high schools: Lester B.Pearson and Robert Bateman. Ms Wilson found for the Board of Education saying there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the process that was used.
Her public report said: “Based on my review and consultations, I conclude that, while there were violations of the Board PAR Policy, they were such that they had no material effect on either the deliberations of the PARC or on the final decisions of the Board.”
One wonders what the Board administration would have to do to draw a different response from the Facilitator.
Jason Bartlett, who is running for the Ward 1 and 2 seat is an active participant of the Special Education parents group and can be expected to advocate for the parents with children that have special needs. Those children need all the advocacy they can get
One can only wish that those parents had been more active during that period of time when the decision to close Bateman was made.
One hopes that the debate for the school board trustees can hear sound arguments and strong positions from the trustees and do away with that “we were thrown under the bus” claim by Bateman parents.
There is the potential to elect trustees that can do the job they are elected to do.
This is the time for voters to look over the candidates and ensure that the direction the school board takes is sound and meets the needs of the children that will be heading back to school in a couple of weeks.
Salt with Pepper are the opinions, reflections, observations and musings of the Gazette publisher
For those citizens of Burlington who might have forgotten: Current Burlington Halton District School Board (HDSB) Trustees Andrea Grebenc, Leah Reynolds and Richelle Papin voted to close two Burlington high schools only Burlington Trustee Amy Collard fought to keep the Burlington high schools open.
Most citizens will agree the three current trustees listed above should be voted out of office for their failure to support and listen to the more than 65 delegations by parents and citizens who requested them NOT to close the Burlington high schools, plus the 2 evenings of delegations to not close the two Burlington high schools made to the Administrative Review process by the parent and citizens of Burlington.
HDSB Trustee candidates: Diane Miller, Margo Shuttleworth, Cheryl DeLugt (running in Oakville Wards 5 & 7) and Jason Bartlett will bring proper governance and support to the excellent current HDSB Trustee Ms. Amy Collard with the result of parent and citizen input being recognized.
Burlington citizens you need to consider carefully which HDSB Trustee candidates you will vote for on Oct. 22nd, 2018.
So, in order to be “for the people” and to “save taxpayers money”, how long before Mr. Ford mandates one school board for Ontario and gets rid of local trustees and runs Education from Queen’s Park?