Talk about dysfunction. The Toronto District School Board is a prime-case study. By all accounts, it’s a rat’s nest of harassment, backbiting, favouritism, bullying, fear, self-dealing and mysterious payments. One trustee was charged with forcible confinement after a run-in with the director. The director has been accused of obfuscation and obstruction. Other people have been accused of misdirecting charitable funds. The last chair of the board left amid a cloud of murky dealings with a Chinese entity called the Confucius Institute, and the last director resigned amid charges of plagiarism.
Governance and human-resource nightmares aren’t the only problems. The TDSB owns dozens of half-empty schools and surplus property that it refuses to sell off. At the same time, the new full-day kindergarten classes mandated by the province are crowded and chaotic. The union fleeced the board for years by charging exorbitant rates for maintenance and repairs. (One notorious example: $143 to install a pencil sharpener). No wonder Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government has ordered an inquiry to get to the bottom of the mess.
Well, plus ça change! It seems like only yesterday that a shocking auditor’s report, ordered by the government of the day, blasted the TDSB for being “misguided and dysfunctional” and desperately in need of a shake-up. (Actually, it was 2002.) Trustees were enraged by the criticism. One of them lashed back, fuming that the report was “an assault on what we were elected to do.” Her name was Kathleen Wynne. (more...)
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