Toronto school board’s ‘culture of fear’ nothing new

Margaret Wilson, right, becomes emotional as she describes
Toronto District School Board staff in tears as they told her
about the culture of fear in the organization

We didn’t need another inquiry to tell us the Toronto public school board has been a money-wasting, dysfunctional disaster area for years.

But as it happens there have now been two inquiries into the board that have told Ontario’s Liberal government the same thing.

That is, that in addition to trustee incompetence and bizarre and wasteful decisions like keeping open half-empty schools, there exists within the board a “culture of fear” that flows down from trustees to administrators and school staff.

It starts with bullying, meddling and intimidation by some trustees — not all, but enough that it’s a huge problem.

Trustees who believe their job is to micro-manage the day-to-day operation of schools — a task for which they are spectacularly unqualified — as opposed to providing leadership and direction.  (more...)

Toronto school board’s ‘culture of fear’ nothing new

And neither is the culture of entitlement:

Trustee Flashback: Those were the days! http://t.co/4qLACGlJwJ Problems are not confined to #TDSB, It's rotten all around. #ONTed #ONpoli
— by Sam Sotiropoulos (@TrusteeSam) January 17, 2015