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MARK-ALAN WHITTLE ARROGANT AND INEFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE: HWDSB Good evening Ladies and Gentleman: Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to speak to a number of important issues concerning the Hamilton-Wentworth District School board and the final report of the supervisor. I was originally going to talk at length about my sons real life experiences trying to get educated amid the boards usurious special education policies, or in many cases, the lack of any kind of student focused policy all together, rigid union contract language -- a pervasive malaise that has infected virtually every policy of the board - and a union driven culture of institutional arrogance held forth within the school district. For example, almost every policy of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, including those I spent many hours of my personal time consulting to as a parent leader in the community, contain a paragraph, or something very similar, that speaks for itself. For example, according to the boards French Immersion Curriculum Policy No. 3.01, Subsection 2.3; "Class size, staffing and working conditions for the French Immersion program shall be determined by the collective agreement." It's so completely open-ended and unpredictable as to be laughable. It handcuffs the board quite effectively, rendering innovative service delivery too bloated to fly, just like Air Canada. A key point I have come to know from reading Dr. Murray's final report, is your arrogance in presuming that the Supervisor needed to incorporate all of your self-serving advice into his decisions -- for that is certainly the intent of one of the documents that you handed out at the previous meeting of the boards co-management team. After reading Dr. Murray's final report to the board it became crystal clear to me that much of what this boards suspended trustees wanted to see happen under school closure policy, accommodation and even the budget -- was done by Dr. Murray. The undeniable fact that all of your small-minded views of the school district were not incorporated, seems to be the purpose of the document you foisted on the public that evening -- in other words, to justify your very existence as suspended trustees during the tenure of Dr. Murray. You just don't seem willing to "get it" and clearly still don't. Judging by your actions to date, you never will, as long as you continue to be unaccountable and ineffective trustees of this school board. As Dr. Murray's report clearly enunciates, at some point the trustees need to become more accountable to the community as there is much at stake for the continued enrichment of our students learning environment and the health and well being of the education system as a whole. Each one of you should come to know the intrinsic value of the voices of students and their parents instead of the voices and agendas of unionized staff who are well paid to serve the students needs first, ahead of their own. Instead of constantly trying to undermine Dr. Murray's good work, and trying to revise the record of the board, you should be acknowledging the recommendations he puts forth in his final report that will reform the arrogant and ineffective governance of this board and empower parents to become the voice that will rebalance the needs of the students against the wants and needs of unionized staff. What, if anything, do you plan to do about the need for governance reform and do you support the investment of $75 million dollars in our community by building ten new schools over the next five years? How will you be held accountable to the students and stakeholders in this community if you fail to do what is right and necessary for our continued survival? To do nothing would be at your own peril, because the community is much smarter and wiser about how a school board -- such as ours -- should be run thanks to the leadership and resolve of Dr. Jim Murray. Perhaps that will be the legacy that the supervisor has left behind. You were suspended by the Minister of Education because you failed to carry out your fiduciary duties and moral obligations to the community and the many stakeholders and parents you had a duty to serve with Honour. You failed to carry out your legal obligations under the Education Act. When you broke the law, the decision making authority of the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board was vested in Dr. Murray under Division D of part IX of the Education Act. No other government appointed supervisor consulted with the trustees to the extent that Dr. Murray did with you, which he reported to the public frequently during his spirited meetings. His candor and honesty were refreshing, in comparison to your self-serving secrecy with respect to your weekly caucus meetings and your refusal to make the minutes of them public, if they actually exist. Thank goodness for the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act, which I have evoked and served on the board only days ago and with which you have 30 days to comply. Attached is a copy of it for the incoming trustees perusal. Rest assured, other parent leaders in the community, including many that are here in the chamber tonight, are questioning the document you distributed to the public at your last co-management meeting that made some pretty far fetched claims based on that very fact of your strange interpretation of "open and transparent governance", which you compare to the supposed "secrecy" of Dr. Murray's supervision of this school board. Another more troubling example of an incumbent trustee disseminating false and misleading information to the public, was the unfounded blame assessment, during an all candidates meeting I attended, of this boards failure to accommodate the transportation needs of a French Immersion school, through an innovative transportation partnership with the Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board, on the intransigence of Patrick Daly, Chairman of the Board. I have included a copy of his strongly worded rebuttal -- to set the record straight on his behalf. Several trustees have repeatedly claimed in the media that Dr. Murray, "...took our ideas and fast tracked them". But it was Dr. Murray's job to make the unpopular, but necessary decisions, which for the most part, were the ones you were incapable of making on your own. Much of the detail in those two documents does not square with the facts. I consider it nothing more than a face saving exercise and I wish Dr. Murray could be given an official opportunity to comment on those documents because I feel confident he would identify the proliferation of bald faced lies and call you on them. The only purpose of these documents, in which you claim you weren't consulted extensively, is to simply skew Dr. Murray's candid report of what was done and what was not done during his leadership of the school board. Your offering serves no other purpose than that - desperately seeking to justify your existence as suspended trustees of the school board. As everyone in this room must know by now, you were rendered irrelevant during supervision, and the media has said this repeatedly in all three jurisdictions that were under government appointed supervision. Breathtaking arrogance belies your suggestion that all of your self-serving advice should have been blindly accepted by Dr. Murray, while making strident claims that you weren't extensively consulted, are simply untrue and a complete fabrication. For that you should be held to account. Further, to claim you were not consulted on routine business and administrative decisions, that you approved every year as a matter of consistent practice, is indicative of arrogant and ineffective governance and a feeble effort at revisionist history. Respectfully, Mark-Alan Whittle President and CEO LOGAN'S PONY CLUB FOR CHILDREN WITH CEREBRAL PALSY |