The Politics Of School Boards

Having worked as a teacher for 30 years, I am well-aware of the politics that pervades and blights education. The higher one goes up the ladder, the more one is concerned about damage control. Since I was a mere peon, i.e. a classroom teacher, I had little tolerance for such nonsense.

It was therefore with much disgust but little surprise that I read about the Toronto District School Board putting an embargo on principals when unpleasant things happen in their schools. Apparently, the drawing of swastikas in washrooms is something they like to deal with 'in house.'

Parents at a Toronto elementary school vandalized with swastikas were stunned to hear of the incident from their children and not administrators, saying they are “disappointed” by a board procedure that prohibits principals from sharing such information.

The Toronto District School Board says it takes allegations of hate and racism “very seriously” but has moved away from telling parents about these incidents because it’s concerned that students who may have been involved will be vilified and the reports will lead to copycat acts.

Hmm, consequences for the malefactors - what a horrifying prospect.

“As an educational institution, we have a duty to create a school community that is not only safe for students, but one in which they can learn from their mistakes.”

In an interview with the Star, school council co-chairs Rachel Cooper and Livy Jacobs say their children told them the principal made an announcement about washroom graffiti, urging those with information to come forward. It was through the rumour mill that students, and parents, learned two swastikas had been drawn in the washroom.

Cooper and Jacobs, both Jewish, met with the principal and told her that parents should have been informed. They were surprised to learn the board doesn’t notify the school community about incidents of hate, including antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Black racism.

“The principal’s hands are tied, and they’re not allowed to send a communication even if they feel that they should,” said Cooper....

The TDSB, it appears, is more concerned about transgressive students than their victims, and optics over openness, revealing in an email that informing parents of such incidents

“often led to the identification, surveillance, and stigmatization of the specific students who may have been involved — making it difficult for them to reintegrate with their peers.

But never fear, the board is 

developing a “distinct strategy” to combat antisemitism, which had been in the works before the war. It’s also addressing other kinds of hate, such as anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, anti-Indigenous racism, ableism and homophobia.

I have never been a fan of theatre of the absurd, but at least until now I have had the choice not to attend such performances. Give what is going on with the TDSB, that obviously no longer holds true. 

 

 

 

 

School Daze

To really understand the mindset of educational institutions today, you have to appreciate one fact: despite nonstop rhetoric to the contrary, they are inherently conservative and risk-averse. Some might even call them reactionary.

While I will get to the main basis for my post in a moment, a personal anecdote perhaps helps to illustrate this pernicious reality. Yesterday, I was talking to a neighbour across the street who retired from high-school teaching last November. A graduation ceremony was recently held in the school's parking lot for teachers, students and their parents, but she was told by a superintendent not to attend, as she is no longer a staff member. The administrator feared that "some parents might complain."

While it has been true for some years that administrators and boards have become hypersensitive to public opinion, the trend has accelerated, in my view, because teachers who advance beyond the classroom today tend to be what a friend calls "the resume-polishers," desperate to prove that they are "team players" as they climb the career ladder.

Simply put, their personal ambitions trump educational principles. They follow orders without question, and do everything in their power to avoid 'dirt' in their package.

And that is not good for society.

Shree Paradkar illustrates this fact as she writes about the craven treatment of Javier Davila by the Toronto District School Board:

Last month, after the equity educator was repeatedly attacked by a Toronto Sun columnist, and a pro-Israel advocacy group called for him to be fired, the Toronto District School Board placed him under investigation and an indefinite suspension. The action ignited an uproar from teachers, principals and other staff who framed it as an “all lives matter” approach by the board that has put a question mark on its stated commitment to anti-oppression.

Davila declined to comment to the Star. But in a Medium blog where he describes his work, he said he has received hundreds of emails over the years from teachers, principals and even directors of other school boards who asked permission to use his resources.

An educator for 16 years, Davila's job in part consists of sharing resources on matters including anti-colonialism, anti-racism and police abolition.

In recent months, he has sent bulletins on topics such as the Land Back movement, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and responses to the murder of Asian sex workers in Atlanta.

The board was so enthusiastic about his work that it directed people to his website if they weekly communications from him.

All that enthusiasm suddenly evaporated after the latest violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Davila shared two resources for teachers, one on May 16, the other on May 19.

Within days, a Toronto Sun columnist wrote not one or two but three pugilistic columns castigating Davila for being anti-Israeli.

Indeed, much of the Jewish community is in an uproar. B'nai Brith is calling both for a full apology from the board and the termination of Davila, adding that "... no one who distributes anti-Semitic propaganda like this should work for a school board in Canada.” 

All of which has board officials quaking in their collective boots.

“During this time, the staff member will be on home assignment. We are also in the process of removing this staff member’s current and previous group mailings/newsletters from TDSB email inboxes,” a spokesperson told media.

“Home assignment” means being put on ice, cut off from his workplace and not allowed to contact his colleagues.

The board also took down the page on its website that directed educators to Davila’s newsletter.

So how are people reacting to this?

Retired TDSB educator Tim McCaskell says where formerly this might have earned a low-key talking to,

"... the board is so risk-averse now it doesn’t take much to send it into a tailspin,” he said.

 The Israeli lobby’s position was that criticizing Israel could foster anti-Semitism. Today it posits that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitism. “The conceptual framework has shifted,” he said. “Could you imagine organizing a conference on human rights in Palestine?”

Others are rallying in support of Davila:

There are no instances of anti-Semitic content within the resources,” reads a petition titled “Oppression and Censorship have no place in our schools.” It is signed by nearly 5,000 people and includes the support of unions such as CUPE and CUPW.

A group of more than 80 teachers calling themselves “concerned educators” and identified only by their initials and the name of their schools told the school board and trustees they were perturbed by the term “anti-Israel racism,” saying it would have the same effect of shutting down conversations on anti-oppression as would labelling critiques of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people as “anti-Canadian.”

Jewish educators, parents and community members began another petition in support of Davila. “The resources that Mr. Davila shared were in no way anti-Semitic, and we’re concerned that this investigation will put a chill on TDSB staff who may fear discussing this issue or possibly other issues that are perceived as controversial,” they wrote. “As Jewish parents, we refuse the notion that Palestinian human rights are somehow oppositional to our own — in fact, the opposite is true.”

Meanwhile, the board is engaged in a surveillance protocol that would do justice to a police state.

… staff said their social media accounts were being monitored and “likes” on pro-Palestinian material meant a private conversation with immediate superiors.

“We are increasingly disturbed by the policing, criticism and silencing that some of us are experiencing when we name and create space to discuss such human rights violations,” a group of about 50 TDSB principals told the board in an open letter they signed as “anonymous for fear of reprisals.”

A school principal who was one of the letter writers confirmed to the Star they were given a talking-to by a senior board official as well as a trustee of a ward that is neither from where the principal works nor lives.

All of this leaves me angry and disgusted, but not surprised, for the reason I cited at the beginning of this post. But the final word goes to an anonymous TDSB staffer:

“People are nervous,” said the TDSB staffer. “For a lot of educators looking at Javier, we’re thinking if this is a white-passing dude who is being targeted this way, imagine if it was us.

“All of us are very afraid.”

Revisionism Run Amok

I have written ten previous posts about Chris Spence. the disgraced former Director of the Toronto District School Board, whose fall from professional grace was caused by his serial plagiarism. I hope readers will indulge me for my eleventh post, this one in response to a risible attempt at resurrecting his career.

When I taught, plagiarism was considered the worst academic crime one could commit. It still is. But according to Spence apologist Bruce Davis, former Chair of the Toronto District School Board and a trustee from 2000-2010, it is really much ado about nothing, and that the recent revocation of Spence's teaching certificate was an egregious injustice that must be rectified.

Davis writes:

I was gob-smacked last week when I learned of the Ontario College of Teachers’ decision to revoke Chris Spence’s teaching qualifications. Dumbfounded. Confused. Irritated. Angry.

I thought I was witnessing a professional lynching.

After launching into a protracted encomium that suggests Spence is a living saint, Davis makes this remarkable and quite inaccurate assertion:

Spence paid dearly for his acts of plagiarism first revealed by the Toronto Star, resulting in the loss of his professional stature, his salary, and his reputation in the community. But he took responsibility and owned up to his mistakes.

He neglects to add that Spence's 'owing up' took place only after he was caught, and in a desperate bid to salvage his job. But that matters not to Davis:

In the context of Spence’s clear remorse for his acts, I saw an opportunity for Spence to talk to kids about academic ethics, about putting in the hard work and not taking short-cuts, and about taking responsibility when you mess-up. I believe Spence’s fall from grace remains a teachable moment.

In a clever bit of misdirection, Davis looks at sanctions meted out to others who have run afoul of professional ethics, and suggests that Spence's punishment is disproportionate; Spece's personal apologist is apparently either oblivious to, or willfully ignorant of, the grave nature of the former educator's misdeeds. And he offers two very suspect conclusions:

In my view, to a reasonable person taking away Spence’s certification to teach is not proportional to the magnitude of his mistakes. On the contrary – it is patently unfair and heavy-handed.

I stand by Chris Spence. If the opportunity had been presented, I would have advocated on his behalf at his discipline hearing. I would have told the panel without equivocation or doubt: this man should still be teaching children and leading teachers.

This article was all too much for me, so I penned a letter of rebuttal to the Toronto Star, which I hope they print:

I must take strong issue with Bruce Davis's stout defence of Chris Spence, the disgraced former Director of Education for the Toronto District School Board. It would seem that his friendship with Spence has led him to minimize the gravity of the latter's misdeeds.

By all accounts a serial plagiarist whose ignoble acts go back at least as far as his PhD thesis, Spence has shown a consistent disregard for academic honesty, the sine qua non for all educators. The fact that his teaching licence has been revoked is simple justice, neither “patently unfair and heavy-handed,” nor a ”professional lynching” as described by Davis.

During my career as a high school teacher, there could be no greater betrayal than a student's theft of another's ideas or words. To have that same academic crime committed by someone purporting to be an educational leader and exemplar compounds the betrayal; by showing flagrant, egregious and repeated contempt for the staff, students and parents he was supposedly leading, Spence did not make 'mistakes' but rather revealed himself to be one who felt the rules were made for others, not him, to follow, and thus did grievous harm not only to public morale but also to the students under his leadership.

If that doesn't warrant the revocation of a teaching certificate, what does?

Chris Spence's 'Performance': The Reviews Are In

I realize that the subject of Chris Spence is likely of little or no interest to readers of this blog outside of the immediate area, but I cannot apologize for writing what is now my tenth entry on the disgraced former Director of the Toronto District School Board. My anger at his betrayal of education remains unabated, despite the fact that I have been retired from teaching for several years now.

As I observed yesterday, Spence's first steps on his 'redemption and comeback tour' left much to be desired, given the general tone of self-pity and self-justification that permeated his interview in The Toronto Star.

I was pleased to discover this morning that I am not alone in that assessment. In a column entitled Chris Spence seems only somewhat sorry, the Star's Rosie DiManno is unconvinced of the fallen Spence's contrition. Referring to him as a situational fraud, she observes that his disingenuous and blame-shifting spin on events can’t go [sic] be allowed to stand as mitigating epitaph to a career in ashes, reminding us of a rat-a-tat of exculpatory factors he offered during the interview, all of which, in my mind, amounts to a slightly more elaborate 'the dog ate my homework' excuse offered by students over the years.

Interviews at The Globe and Mail and The National Post show Spence offering similar justifications and rationalizations for his 'errors'. Indeed, he goes so far as to proclaim, despite much evidence to the contrary, that he is absolutely not” a serial plagiarist and “never” deliberately lifted any uncredited passages from other people’s work into his own.

The reviews of their former Director are decidedly mixed at the Toronto District School Board. As reported by Louise Brown, Trustee Jerry Chadwick believes that young people still need people like him who believe in them, while Trustee Sheila Ward had this to say:

So he was busy ... “What’s that got to do with plagiarism?” She said she thinks Spence can find a productive role in society in time, but warned, “I don’t think his comments yesterday moved that forward.”

For those interested, there is a more general assessment of the challenges faced by public figures on the road to rehabilitation by the Star's Laura Kane, who wonders whether people like Spence and Adam Giambrone are motivated more by a thirst for power than they are by a desire for redemption.

In any event, whatever the ultimate motive, most, I suspect, would agree that whatever public relations firm Chris Spence has hired has a lot more work to do with their client before he is ready for prime-time.

When Is Claiming To Take Full Responsibility Just A Platitude?

When it is proclaimed by Chris Spence, the disgraced former Director of the Toronto District School Board who lost his job earlier this year for extensive plagiarism.



In what the Toronto Star describes as a 'far reaching interview,' Spence says “there are no excuses for what I did; I didn’t give credit where credit was due.” Yet in the next breath he blames the work of a number of assistants over many years for the unattributed material.

Spence talks about the 'soul-destroying depression' that has engulfed him since the scandal broke, but also blames his own “blind ambition” and relentless Type-A drive that left him little time to write his own work.

“I’m not looking to point fingers, but did I write everything? Absolutely not. I had support … as early as 1994,” said Spence, who by then was a full-time teacher, full-time grad student and writing movie scripts and books.

“When I look back at the blogs, the speeches, the presentations, I’m going to say that a large, large percentage, you had support to get some of that work done. But I recognize that I approved everything, I signed off on everything. I take full responsibility for that.

“I was out in the community a lot, presenting a lot, and I never really had the kind of time that you need to sit down and put pen to paper.”

I guess this is the 'blame the underlings' defence, made famous by politicians and senators.

Yet Spence claims to take 'full responsibility.' The man is clearly contrite.

Never admitting that he purposely stole other people's words and ideas, something that is obvious when the evidence is examined, Spence suggests that he read many things, and those ideas just kind of jibed with his own thinking and then - presto! Quite frankly, I used to hear more creative excuses from my students.

Oh, and he also adds that he was juggling too many professional tasks to be thorough in his footnotes. And what footnotes might they be, Dr. (at least until his plagiarized Ph.d is completely reviewed) Spence?

Clearly delusional, the plagiarist hopes some day to be “back working with kids. I’m an educator at heart, that’s who I am. I think I have some gifts and talents; I hope I get an opportunity to share and make a difference in the future.”

My disgust with Spence remains unmitigated. His betrayal of both educational principles in general and his position as Director in particular renders him unfit for any further public position.

But there may be some light ahead for the disgraced one. Perhaps a new career awaits him. Confessionals in this day and age are very popular on the road to rehabilitation. Can an appearance on an Oprah-type show be expected as the next step? He has certainly laid the groundwork for it here.

Did Someone Say 'Byelection'?

I'm certainly glad that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is adhering to her commitment to a new way of doing politics.

I'm sure the Toronto District School Board also appreciates her integrity.

Why Chris Spence Must Be Fired

It is hardly an insight to observe that ours is a world that bears witness to institutional and organizational failures on a massive scale. Those bodies that should be there to promote and protect the public good have proven far more adept at promoting and protecting their own interests instead. Be they church, government, police, education or charitable institutions, each have a long and well-publicized record of failing crucial tests of their integrity.

I fear that the Toronto District School Board can soon be added to that unenviable gallery of infamy.

Last night, the TDSB deferred to a later date a discussion to decide Director Chris Spence's fate, at the same time as Chair Chris Bolton made the following declaration:

“We want to assure everyone and the public we take the situation very seriously and we want to address it in a timely fashion”.

A fine-sounding statement, but any dithering on the board's part can serve no constructive purpose. To be perfectly clear, Spence's transgression was not a 'mistake' or a result of 'sloppiness' or 'carelessness'. It was a deliberate attempt to deceive his employers, The Toronto Star, and the public at large. And, as pointed out yesterday by the National Post's Chris Selley, the offending article's content, as brief as it was, seems mainly to have been a cut-and-paste exercise culled from multiple sources, and much more extensive than suggested by yesterday's Star apology.

These facts raise troubling questions not only about the Director's character, judgement and integrity, but also his intellectual capacities. Platitudes, especially those derived from other sources, can never be a substitute for substance.

Finally, there is a very disturbing report in today's National Post alleging that Spence may in fact be a serial plagiarist. According to reporters Megan O'Toole and Chris Selley,

...the National Post has found several instances in which Mr. Spence seems to have taken information from other articles without crediting them. In December, the Star published an op-ed under Mr. Spence’s byline about the tragic mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. It included an anecdote — ostensibly about how Mr. Spence explained the horrific violence to his son Jacob — that closely resembles one described by another writer, Aisha Sultan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Was anyone killed?” the boy asks. In Ms. Sultan’s work, he is 7. In Mr. Spence’s, his age has been changed to 10.

“Yes, some people were killed,” read the two columns, Mr. Spence’s published days after Ms. Sultan’s. “It’s very sad. But your school is safe. And I will do anything and everything to make sure you and your sister are always safe at school.” Huge swaths of the remaining narrative appear to have been copied from a grab bag of sources: the Post-Dispatch, the Sacramento Bee and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Additionally, the Post reports that a

... segment from a July 24 opinion piece published in the Star, pegged to this summer’s Danzig Street shootout, appears to be word-for-word from an online “healthy students plan” originating in Connecticut. An October 2011 entry to his personal blog about the Chinese education system appears strikingly similar to information in The New York Times, Time magazine and other sources.

It can never be pleasant to have a person's employment fate rest in one's hands. Yet that is one of the crucial responsibilities those who vie for public office must accept without reservation. Chris Spence has become an unequivocal liability for the Toronto District School Board, one that threatens to further undermine its reputation and the goals and standards it sets for its students.

Spence must be jettisoned with dispatch if public accountability is to be anything other than an empty and morally bankrupt phrase.

Finger-Pointing 2.0

Well, there can be little doubt that both The Toronto District School Board and the Ontario Ministry of Education have fully embraced the digital age. Finger-pointing abounds on both sides.

In the ongoing saga that I think could best be described as a clash between Jimmy Hazel's union muscle (and please remember that I am a steadfast supporter of unions until they start misbehaving), TDSB ineptitude, and suspicious provincial politics, Board Chair Chris Bolton has penned an angry missive to Education Minister Laurel Broten, whose ham-fisted application of Bill 115 has mandated a continuation of the sweetheart deal that Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council enjoys with the board, this despite earlier demands by the province that they send in some advisers to help the board get its finances in order.

Bolton says the province “turned the tables” on the board and has now tied its hands. Now, it can’t even do something simple — such as eliminate overlapping shift changes — which could lower maintenance costs and allow the board to rid itself of about 200 vehicles.

“Those alone would save $3 million,” Bolton said in an interview with the Star.

A disquieting earlier report by The Star raised the possibility of a suspect, perhaps even corrupt, relationship between Hazel's group and the McGuinty government. The paper revealed that council members campaigned on behalf of the Liberals, contributed, along with other unions working for the board, over $675,000 to the party's coffers, and, apparently as a reward for their fealty, received gift certificates from the Liberals worth over $253,000.

And yet the TDSB hardly emerges as blameless in this imbroglio. In what can perhaps be interpreted as a testament to organizational inertia at the very least, the board has done almost nothing since a 2006 review by Blackstone Partners, which

submitted a 113-page report to the TDSB in January 2007 detailing a litany of issues: high costs of repairs, lots of workers and spotty results, and managerial “silos” that made it hard for principals to figure out whom to approach to get a job done.

At the time this information was brought to public scrutiny by The Star, TDSB Director Chris Spence rather lamely asserted that some progress has been made, and the report is “working its way through the committee structure” at the board.

Taking over five years to work through a report? Indefensible by any standard, I would think.

So blame for these fiscal improprieties has to be shared among the board, the trades council, and the McGuinty government. What interests me most about this tawdry saga is that it is most likely a mere microcosm of corruption, cosy political relationships, and general institutional ineptitude, all intractable shortcomings not easily remediated. Yet I rest a little easier each night knowing that a paper with journalistic integrity, The Toronto Star, is on the job and willing to go where most mainstream media are not to be found.

Jimmy Hazel and His Crew Prevail

As I have mentioned in this blog before, one of the many reasons I respect The Toronto Star is that it doesn't let its adherence to The Atkinson Principles blind it to good stories, even when those stories may lead to some uncomfortable questions about the abuses that unions are sometimes guilty of. Their stellar series of investigative reports last year, exploring the peculiar relationship between the Toronto District School Board and Jimmy Hazel’s 900-strong Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, upon which I based several blog posts, attests to that fact.

Today's Star reveals some potentially disturbing information which, if its implications are true, further suggest the scope of the Ontario McGuinty government's misuse of its political power, previously chronicled in its attempts to purchase a majority government through costly cancellations of gas-fired plants, engineering unnecessary byelections through the seduction of sitting members of the legislature, etc.

In an interview with The Star, the chair of the Toronto District School Board, Chris Bolton, suggests that the relationship between the governing Liberals and the Trades Council does not perhaps pass 'the smell test,' given the fact that, despite an extensive review of the financially-strapped board, the government has decided to preserve its contract with Hazel's group for the next two years:

“(The trades council members) are major contributors to the Liberals,” noted TDSB chair Chris Bolton in an interview with the Star. Having angered teachers with recent legislation, Bolton, a New Democrat, and others at the board speculate that the Liberals are trying to shore up support from other organized labour groups in the province as they prepare for an election.

The story reveals that Mr. Hazel's group sent two stiffly-worded letters to education minister Laurel Broten asking her to step in and preserve its old contract with Toronto’s public school board.

The Star's earlier investigation revealed evidence of the indebtedness the McGuinty Liberals may feel toward the Trades Council, whose members

...have campaigned for the Liberals, delivering election pamphlets door to door. Political donations to the Liberals from Hazel’s group and related unions who work for the school board total at least $675,000 since 2005. The Liberals responded one year by providing $253,000 of gift cards for Hazel’s TDSB workers, redeemable at Tiger Direct.

Education Minister Laurel Broten has defended the contract extension as an inevitable result of the collective agreements she imposed the other day on Ontario teachers, but one cannot help but wonder why the two have been thus conflated.

Given the increasingly suspect nature of the McGuinty government, however, expect no definitive answers to the disturbing questions raised by The Star anytime soon.

Toronto District School Board Blinks

As I suspected, after yesterday's Star story about the Toronto District School Board's outrageous demand for $3.6 million to release work order information related to the costs incurred in their exclusive contract with Jimmy Hazel's maintenance and construction skilled trades council, the board is singing a different tune today:

The Toronto District School Board is revising its $3.6 million estimate to provide data for a Star investigation.

How much the fee will drop is unclear, but a top official said the board is committed to finding a way to release the information.

“I am confident we will find a solution,” board education director Chris Spence said Thursday.

Let us hope that Spence, a man who is never short on bromides and platitudes, is not engaging in politically expedient posturing here.

Given The Star's journalistic tenacity, I'm sure we'll soon find out.

TDSB To Star: It's Gonna Cost You To See My Hand

The Toronto Star, after conducting an excoriating investigative series on the fiscal incompetence of the Toronto District School Board in its very costly arrangement with Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, has learned the price of getting the complete picture of that incompetence: $3.6 million.

That's how much officials have told the paper it will cost to get more than a peek at their fiscal cards following a request under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for the board's electronic database of work orders showing what taxpayers have been charged for maintenance and construction projects at local schools.

Despite the fact that The Star requested a copy of the electronic database, the board, which, with a straight face insists on its commitment to transparency, lists the following charges that would be incurred in meeting that 'commitment':

• $1,125,000 to search for the records in the SAP database, which would take 37,500 hours at $30 per hour

• $1,350,000 to prepare the records for release, which would take 45,000 hours at $30 per hour. She estimates one-quarter of the records would have to be “severed,” to remove information they objected to releasing. The Star has seen sample pages from the records and there is no personal information, which is typically the type of information removed.

• $1,080,000 to photocopy the records, even though the Star asked for an electronic copy of the database. The TDSB said there are 5.4 million pages detailing the work orders and the charge levied would be 20 cents a page.

Apparently the information is stored on what is called a SAP database which, according to Wikipedia, is an enterprise-wide information system designed to coordinate all the resources, information, and activities needed to complete business processes such as order fulfillment or billing. According to The Star article, the database shows when a work order is requested by a school, when the work is done, how many hours are charged, how many workers are involved and other details.

I suspect after the general public reads about the TDSB's outrageous attempt to conceal the full extent of its ineptitude through these prohibitive charges, the information will soon be available at 'firesale' prices.

The Glacial Pace Of Change At The TDSB

Regarded by some as a master of platitudes, Toronto District School Board Director Chris Spence says that things are getting better.

As outlined in The Star's investigative series, the board, in the thrall of Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, which forms the backbone of the TDSB’s facilities division, has for years been grossly overpaying for simple repair jobs. This was well-known to administrators and board officials for many years, and in 2006 a review was conducted by consultants Blackstone Partners, who then submitted a report to officials in January of 2007.

Despite the passage of almost six years, we are told today by Mr. Spence that some progress has been made, and the report is “working its way through the committee structure” at the board.

In what passes for clarity, lucidity and justification (cynics might call it base political posturing), the former football player drew a sports analogy:

“To use a football analogy, we are trying to move the yardstick. There is no quick fix,” said Spence, who became director two years after the review. “But I am not running, I am not hiding from the problem.”

“Blackstone took us so far. Some of the work we are doing now will take us farther,” Spence said in the interview.

To continue with Mr. Spence's sports metaphor, given the lack of specifics about this putative progress, combined with the aggregate revelations of the Star's series, some might conclude that it is time for this team to be kicked out of the league.

Digital Exercise

With all of the finger-pointing in the Star's latest installment on the Toronto District School Board's questionable relationship with Jimmy Hazel and his Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council, I think it is safe to infer that all involved parties have truly entered the digital age.

The Toronto District School Board's Political Response

While hardly surprising, the decision of TDSB chair, Chris Bolton, to have a facilities committee look into The Star's embarrassing revelations about its inappropriate and very costly relationship with Jimmy Hazel's Maintenance and Construction Skilled Trades Council is wholly inadequate.

As today's Star editorial tartly observes, It was exactly what taxpayers have learned to expect from politicians facing embarrassing revelations.

Yet another indication of an organization in deep decline.

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 Star Continues Its Investigation

Unless the Toronto District School Board is staffed by a raft of incompetents, it has to have known what is going on.

As I wrote in my blog post yesterday, an investigation by The Toronto Star has revealed theft on a massive scale in the form of grossly inflated charges to the board for even the simplest of routine maintenance tasks by employees under the exclusive contract enjoyed by the Maintenance & Construction Skilled Trades Council headed by Jimmy Hazel.

In Part 2 of that investigation, the newspaper reports a number of interesting aspects to this scandal, the most interesting to me being the reaction of top board officials Director Chris Spence and school superintendents and deputy operations director Penny Mustin, both of whom refused to offer any comment on this massive waste of tax dollars.

The school board is also refusing to release a copy of its internal tracking database that contains details of the annual 1.8 million hours of work the board’s electricians, carpenters, plumbers and other trades claim they perform.

Based upon my 30-year career as a teacher, having been witnesses to much cowardly political behaviour on the part of administrators, my guess is that database will never be made public, the feeble citing of 'privacy concerns' being the likely justification.

My own experience in education taught me that the last thing administrators want to do, afflicted as they are with an unquenchable thirst for advancement, is to rock the boat. It is far easier, (and certainly more politically expedient unless the truth is revealed by a crusading newspaper) to conceal or simply accept things crying out for redress. That way it doesn't get messy, and one's career-path usually continues unimpeded. (Oh, the tales I could tell.)

And so I shall end as I began. The TDSB had to have known what was going on. Wait for the next installment of this sad saga, as those in power all establish their poses of 'plausible deniability.'

I would it were otherwise.

The Star Continues Its Stellar Work

One of the Atkinson Principles guiding The Toronto Star is to champion the rights of working people; to my ongoing delight and gratification, however, this tenet does not mean the paper gives a free ride to labour and unions.

Today's edition is ample testament to that fact. Another of its excellent investigations has uncovered what many would say are corrupt and extortionate practices on the part of the Maintenance & Construction Skilled Trades Council headed by Jimmy Hazel.

As outlined in the story, the Council, which has an exclusive contract with the Toronto District School Board, has been charging exorbitant amounts to the cash-strapped board, one example being the installation of a pencil sharpener at a cost of $143, another the placing of an electrical outlet in a school library for $3000.

Perhaps one of the article's most disturbing revelations is the fear of retaliation rampant amongst both tradespeople and principals if they make a fuss about these pratices. Added to the fact that Council President Hazel initially met the Star's inquiries with a stream of profanities, followed up later with patently contrived excuses of 'clerical errors' in the billing suggests yet another example of wrongdoing crying out for remediation.

As I have said before in this blog, while I strongly believe in supporting unions, that support can never be uncritical, unquestioning, and unconditional.