Facing the dark tower: educators and the TDSB

The Toronto District School Board is in a state of siege. Its supervisor, Rohit Gupta, issues monthly proclamations with little or no explanation or justification: raising class size caps, cutting summer school sites, firing the newly-hired director of education, refusing to meet with the Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) and cutting enrolment for grades 9 and 10 at two secondary schools caring for some of the most vulnerable members of the TDSB community.

There are unresolved questions about the future of the Toronto Lands Corporation, the Board subsidiary that manages its $15 to $20 billion real estate portfolio. A regulation change last summer, after trustees were suspended, gave the Education Minister more power to dispose of school board properties as he or she chooses. Just last week, the TDSB and the Toronto Catholic DSB launched a legal challenge regarding Toronto City Council’s decision to exclude school properties from its plan to allow mid-rise buildings, from 6 to 14 storeys, to be built along main thoroughfares. As the Beaconsfield Village Residents Association told Toronto Planning and Housing Committee in November there had been little public consultation and no planning to justify using two school sites as development projects. Had board trustees not been barred from any discussions about their schools, they would have been all over this. As it stands, there is nothing in public TDSB documents that says anything about this plan.

Last December Paul Calandra said that school boards, like TDSB and TCDSB, under supervision might just be able to sell properties. This option had, for years, been off the table, while the boards were bleeding so much money that the minister decided to take them over. Now it looks like the same boards are doing battle with City Council in order to make money selling properties without taking community needs into consideration.

There is no information available to anyone who isn’t psychic but might be interested learning how the TDSB is preparing for next year’s budget. It isn’t clear whether Gupta is making decisions or if Calandra is whispering in his ear. It isn’t clear what the roles are of highly paid senior administrators. The Board’s media department doesn’t answer questions; its MOE-mandated Family Support Office consists of two people to help the families of 236 000 students.

The state of the Board was brilliantly illustrated by the Bowmore Public School fiasco. It was here in January that 2 well-respected teachers were fired and 8 others suspended without pay for up to a week. The principal, vice-principal and school superintendent were removed. This was astounding for something that appears to have grown from a dispute between teachers and school administrators over what teaching model to follow for grades 7 and 8. Elementary Teachers of Toronto (ETT) have grieved the firings and suspensions and held actions attended by teachers and community members to demand respect for the Bowmore community and the educators who work there.

ETT is a progressive local. It speaks up for public education, funding and fairness for the vast diversity of students taught by 11 000 elementary teachers across the Toronto DSB. It has fought for reasonable class sizes and resources, not just for teachers but for the students who need them so badly. It does so in the face of the unrelenting attacks on public education by Paul Calandra’s Ministry of Education (MOE). Over the past few years, like its counterparts, District 12 (OSSTF) and CUPE 4400 education workers, it has dealt with a massive increase in grievances over collective agreement disputes with the TDSB particularly concerning granting of sick leave for teachers who face more stress in larger classes with fewer resources for kids.

Based on what happened to the 10 Bowmore teachers, is disciplinary action against Toronto elementary teachers on the rise? ETT doesn’t have current data to compare this year with others, but local president Helen Victoros says that she hasn’t seen another situation like the firings and suspensions at the school. She notes however, that there is an “increased climate and culture of fear on the part of educators in the TDSB and beyond.” Word of what happened at the school travelled quickly. Teachers worry about the possibility of getting called on the carpet for an “opportunity to respond” to a complaint made against them by an administrator.

It’s still essential to see data, wiped of personal information, that could be used to outline reasons for and the nature of discipline meted out to teachers. This is critical information for educators and families at a time when intimidation and misuse of authority pervades schools. TDSB supervisor Rohit Gupta doesn’t discuss anything of importance; he fires whomever he or Paul Calandra determine need firing. Calandra himself, threatens to “consider every tool in the Education Act to ensure that students are always put first” – in this case making certain that students’ graduation speeches contain nothing he might consider to be political or “divisive.”

Power becomes a cancer that metastasizes without unrelenting opposition. We see it in a fascist U.S. president who wages an unprovoked war on Iran, unopposed by our own Mark Carney. We’ve seen it for 8 years under the Ford government bent on killing local democracy, starving social goods and, most recently, cutting the future for young people needing support for post-secondary education. Ford laughs at local city councilors who don’t like his plans to land jets on Billy Bishop airport, dismissing them as “lefties.” The autocratic intent of his government is clear as it moves to protect its secrets by taking away the right of citizens for freedom of information.

Educators and school communities really must organize and obstruct this increasing and arbitrary misuse of power. We need our local unions who defend their members’ rights. More than ever, we need to  bolster them as they defend their schools and education workers from a school board in chaos.