Institutional Misbehaviour, Redux - UPDATED

While I have written several posts in the past about the seemingly endless capacity of organizations and institutions to behave in ways that best protect themselves rather than serve the interests of their constituencies, each new instance continues to appall me.

Today's print edition of The Star (nothing online yet) details an investigation by the paper into the failure of a Belleville police officer to take note of the license plate of a suspicious vehicle spotted outside of the home of Jessica Lloyd on the night he went on to rape and kill her. This information might have prevented her death

While mistakes happen all the time, and I am hardly in a position to judge the officer involved, what is interesting about this story from my perspective is the fact that it took 20 months for The Star's request for information under The Freedom of Information Act to be fulfilled, largely, it would seem, because both the police and the Ministry of Community Safety were busy trying to conceal what had happened in this major oversight to protect their own interests.

Could this perhaps also be the real reason the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services earlier refused The Star's request for the dates Williams’ DNA was submitted for testing, stating that the release of the information would be an “unjustified invasion of personal privacy”?

Should this article appear online, I will provide further details in an update.

UPDATE: Here is the link to the story on The Star website. As noted in my original post, you will see that the biggest priority of both the Belleville police and the Ministry of Community Safety seems to have been how to best spin shortcomings of the investigation. As well, there still is no protocol in place to avoid such mistakes in the future.

Prepare For The Revolution, A.K.A. Spin, Spin, And More Spin

What is the priority of organizations that are mired in embarrassing public revelations about fraudulent spending of taxpayers' money? The development of a good PR plan.

At least that is what I gleaned from Part Three of The Star's investigation of the Toronto District School Board and its relationship with the Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council run by Jimmy Hazel.

While the story details the cozy relationship that exists between Hazel and the board, including ordering his members to campaign for and donate money to the trustees and the provincial Liberals during elections, (with real consequences for those who refuse,) the most interesting aspect to me is the reaction of both the board and Hazel's organization.

At a private meeting Wednesday of school board trustees, where the Star’s investigation was discussed, [trustee Sheila] Ward told those in attendance that “trustees should be muzzled” until the TDSB has a solid communications plan in place to deal with the Star stories. Note that the response is to deal with the stories, not the problems the stories uncovered.

Not to be outdone, Jimmy Hazel appears to be following the same strategy:

Hazel, who initially unleashed a profanity-filled tirade on a Star reporter, has hired Ross Parry, a former official in the Liberal government. Hazel said Parry is helping him fine-tune his responses to the media. Parry, who was also the TDSB communications chief in the late 1990s, is helping Hazel put “all the information we collected into prose.”

None of this is the least bit surprising to me, given the cynicism I have expressed about organizational behaviour in this blog and my other one many times over the years. What does surprise me, however, is their openness in detailing how they plan to deal with the messenger, not the message.

And the wheel goes round....

The Butler Did It!

This report kind of reminds me of an old spoof on small-town newspapers I once saw, with the headline "Two Local Women Missing in Japan" with almost the entire front page taken up with the story. In a small space at the bottom, this headline: Massive Earthquake Kills Thousands in Japan".

Coming To An Institution Near You

I have long held a very critical view of institutions. Whether they be political, educational, religious, charitable or protective, I believe the effectiveness and integrity of any organization declines with age as self-interest, self-promotion, and lust for power and control supplant the original purposes of serving the common good.

Two recent reminders of the inevitability of institutional senescence are found in today's Toronto Star. The first details how an RCMP officer, Const. Susan Gastaldo, is facing dismissal after she was coerced into a sexual relationship with her superior officer, Staff-Sgt. Travis Pearson, while Pearson himself only faces the possibility of a demotion:

Lawyer Walter Kosteckyj, who represents Gastaldo in a separate civil case against the RCMP, says his client’s situation shows that those who bring forward complaints about the RCMP are more severely punished than those found guilty.

“Susan Gastaldo refused to bow down to pressure and, as a consequence, she could lose her job. The RCMP board decided she was more guilty than Pearson was even though he was a senior officer and maintained his denial up to the last day,” said Kosteckyj, a former RCMP officer.

He went on to say, “Time and time again, we have seen the RCMP is not interested in dealing with harassment and is more interested in protecting their present culture.”

As a retired teacher, I know only too well the measures that administrators will take to silence those it feels compromise the status quo or their own upward career trajectory, so the RCMP's reaction is hardly surprising to me.

The next instance involves a little girl being harassed, threatened, and both verbally and physically abused by a religious institution. No, I am not talking here about the Taliban, but rather another group of religious fanatics, some ultra-orthodox Jews in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh who think they are doing God's will by expressing hatred and intolerance for those who don't share their views, which include the desire for sidewalk segregation of the sexes, and the use of “modesty patrols” which they have dispatched to enforce a chaste female appearance and [hurl] stones at offenders and outsiders. Walls of the neighborhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly in closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.

The little girl who has been an especially vulnerable target to this hate-group is 8-year-old student Naama Margolese. These religious fanatics have spat on her and called her a whore for dressing “immodestly.”

Nama attends a religious school and dresses with long sleeves and a skirt. Extremists, however, consider even that outfit, standard in mainstream Jewish religious schools, to be immodest.

Unfortunately, this kind of criminal behaviour has apparently been countenanced by the authorities because the Ultra-Orthodox hold a fair bit of political power.

I rest my case.

Criminal Teachers And Those Who Protect Them

As a retired teacher, I cringe when I read about wrong-doing by those in the profession. It enrages me that people occupying positions of trust and care would violate their duty to protect and nourish by exploiting their young charges. However, as one who aspires to the ideals of critical thinking, I can't turn a blind eye to these offences and wish them away.

A series in The Star, the result of a lengthy investigation, suggests a systemic problem in bringing these criminals to account. The paper theorizes that one of the reasons this is occurring, in some cases over many years, is a reluctance by teachers to inform on their colleagues. I cannot speak to that, having never known anyone to behave inappropriately in the classroom, but I do know from experience that just like the Vatican did in untold cases of pedophiliac priests, institutions try as hard as possible to conceal their problems, lest the institution suffer bad publicity that therefore impede the career paths of the ambitious.

For example, there was a case of an administrator who was stealing goods, money and services from his school; I have it on what I consider very good authority that a brave soul made every effort to bring the wrongdoing to the attention of senior administration and board officials. He was told unequivocally to drop his pursuit. Eventually, and I don't recall the precise details, his crimes became public, at which point he was permitted to resign, and the board signed a confidentiality agreement with him, an agreement that the board still insists is valid and thus binds them to secrecy. Of course, the critical thinker would immediately ask why the board entered into a secrecy agreement with him. I will leave you to ponder the implications.


The other problem, and I saw this with teachers who either had either very poor attendance or poor teaching practices, was an unwillingness by administration to confront the problem which, if done properly with several opportunities for improvement, can lead to dismissal of the teacher. The difficulty, as one of my friends and colleagues used to say was, “Lorne, they just don't want to do their jobs.”

The following example illustrates this perfectly:

Another administrator in my board, who was moved for harassing his staff as he constantly pressured them for money to feed his gambling problem, was moved to my school for a year where he was allegedly given the job of overseeing special projects which, to my knowledge, never went beyond scheduling on-calls when teachers were absent. The following year he was moved again and became an adult education administrator where, as far as I know, he finished out his career.

Note how the above shows the unwillingness to directly confront a problem employee. It was much easier to simply shift him around.


Public opinion notwithstanding, it is not unions that protect incompetence; the union's role is simply to ensure that the entire process that can lead to dismissal is scrupulously followed, which requires that administration, usually the principal, conduct many meetings with the teacher in question, offer constructive instruction as to how to improve, maintain the appropriate paperwork, etc., all guaranteed to ensure that his or her rights under the collective agreement have been observed and respected. Most principals, in my experience, did not want to put in the effort to do this, and were happy to simply arrange a transfer of the problem to another school, if one were available. Then, of course, he/she became someone else's problem.

It should be clear from the above that like so many other institution, politics in the worst sense of the word permeates education; indeed, taking a few quotes from the Star article demonstrates how officials no longer speak in meaningful ways, but use the obfuscatory language undoubtedly learned by watching the sleaziest of our so-called political leaders. Consider the following:

In an interview, College registrar Michael Salvatori said he could not discuss any individual cases. The Star had hoped Salvatori would answer questions about whether students were let down by the College or the school boards in cases where it appeared better screening or earlier detection would have saved a lot of pain.

“We are confident we have processes in place to protect students,” Salvatori said. “We can always do better.”

Asked about cases where it appears a teacher did not warn authorities of unusual behaviour (Baggio is one), Salvatori said “there are very few cases where (teachers or principals) do not carry out their duties.”

“The heart (of the College) is the public interest and safety of students,” said Salvatori, who added the College is concerned about “the welfare of students and ensuring teachers are well qualified and competent.”

I'll let you evaluate what he said, but for me, his comments do not pass the smell test.

Or consider the following criminal behaviour, which went on for 14 years, aioded and abetted by a feckless administration. I personally find the account difficult to read:

Antonio Raco

In what teachers commonly refer to as “passing the trash,” the Windsor-Essex Catholic District Board moved this Grade 6 teacher between at least four schools from 1991 to 2005. College prosecutors allege his assaults on girls from Grades 6-8 included taking students into the supply room and groping them; pulling a student close and thrusting his pelvis against her from behind; playing a game he called “Red Light,” moving his hands all over a girl's body until he touched her vagina; touching their breasts and hugging them so he could feel their breasts; and sitting on the floor in gym class and pulling girls against his groin. Raco swore at students, threw desks and played favourites. When one parent complained he told all the students he was going to “shun” her daughter. He was also, the college alleges, a dreadful educator.

One day, he told his young students never to share classroom discussions with parents: “This is Raco's circle — whatever happens in Raco's circle stays in Raco's circle.”

Raco, 53, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in 2009 and sentenced to six months in jail. He is appealing his conviction. The College began a hearing two weeks ago but adjourned it because it was worried Raco (who was not in attendance) had not been properly notified.

Until those in positions of responsibility make the public good a priority over protecting and promoting their own careers, expect such betrayals to continue.

UPDATE: I just opened my Sunday paper, and The Star's investigation seems to be continuing. The latest headline: Sexting, cuddling with student, a teenage girl, did not cost teacher his job.

If you have the stomach for it, click on the above to read it.