(All pictures have been removed from the articles because they take up so much memory in each post. To see the pictures use the web address and visit the sites of the newspapers.)
(Anyone having difficulty leaving a comment on this site can email me their comment at teachhard@gmail.com and I will copy and paste it onto the blog, as long as it isn't inappropriate.)
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(An experienced teacher recently told me about a situation that he is very seriously concerned about for the safety of students. He says that the difficult students in the academic classes are being pushed into the shop classes. A teacher says that students are showing up stoned and they are also stoned after lunch period. A teacher who discussed this with a shop teacher is afraid something could happen with students using machines and vehicles if they are under-the-influence. The person who told me said the teacher is worried that they may be disciplined instead of the students. The teacher feels unspoken pressure to say nothing because at least the students are attending school so the school is not losing funding but the school will lose funding if they expel students who are consistently stoned so they allow stoned students to come to school day-after-day. The person who raised their concerns with me is afraid this danger could exist in every high school in Ontario.)
A teacher sent me this information as a result of very serious concern over ever worsening student behaviour in the classroom and a lack of discipline and a lack of support from their union.
Anti - teacher YouTube videos by students, have reached a vicious level. This is to provide a snapshot of 3 of the worst of them.
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(A teacher tells me that when he did his student-teaching an experienced teacher, his associate teacher, told him that OECTA ran workshops for teachers years ago to explain to them that the people who organize and run the modern education system in Ontario had changed the model from one where there was discipline to minimize student behaviour problems and to maximize student learning to an education system model that maximized student empowerment, minimized teacher empowerment and authority and minimized school board liability. He said the reason for this was because of too many teachers using physical force to control student behaviour and the criminal investigations that followed and the charges and lawsuits that resulted. So the current education system is not designed to maximize student learning or teacher authority. If you hear about teacher burnout, low test scores, a high turnover rate of teachers, rowdy classes that your kids are in, and lower scores in provincial and international tests then perhaps this could be a large part of the cause.)
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(Several years ago a substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic, (TCDSB), told another sub some examples of family hiring in the board that he had heard about. A young man graduated from teacher's college and he was given three consecutive, unadvertised contract positions. The first two he was not qualified for. But he got them because his mother was the secretary at a Catholic elementary school near Woodbine and O'Connor. He took the courses he needed to become a special education teacher and the contracts were with those classes so he was qualified for the third unadvertised contract that he was given. After that he was made a full-time, permanent special education teacher with the board. The substitute speculated about a deal with the secretaries union to help their children get unadvertised contracts. The reason why he believed that was because of a second example. A young woman graduated from York U. teacher's college and somehow became certified to teach in Ontario almost immediately upon graduating. She was given assignments immediately by the TCDSB especially at an elementary school near Markham Road and Ellesmere. She wasn't always seen as the greatest teacher because sometimes she told the students to work independently and she was on the classroom computer the whole class. A few months later another substitute teacher saw her at another elementary school. He was working there as a substitute teacher. He said hi to her and he asked if she was doing substitute teaching. She said no, she had been really lucky. She got a maternity leave contract position, (LTO). He said that's great. He thought that she must know someone with the board because he had been trying to get a contract position all summer but he didn't get a single interview. The school they were at was a French Immersion school near Ellesmere and Victoria Park Avenue. She asked him if he spoke French. He said, "Oui, je parle un peut de francais mais je ne suis pas bilingue." She said wow, that's great, I don't even understand that much. Give your name and phone number to the school secretary, she's my mother, and you'll get lots of calls here. He said ok. And he understood how she got that maternity-leave contract position even though she just graduated and only had two months of experience as a substitute teacher and the contract wasn't advertised because if it was he would have applied for it because he had realized that he couldn't survive in Toronto on substitute teachers pay, he was sinking deeper into debt every month. He eventually went bankrupt and he's still bitter that his union allowed this to happen because of all the family hiring they allow in a union shop instead of fighting for the hiring of the most qualified. One other example of unfair hiring the two substitute teachers talked about was when one of them went to a workshop at a school in the west end. He sat beside a young woman who looked like a new graduate. They talked for a few minutes before the workshop started. She asked him if he was a substitute teacher or if he was a full-timer. He said he was a substitute teacher. He thought she was probably wondering since he was 45 by that time. He said he still wasn't getting steady contracts or full-time because of all of the family hiring with the board. She said yes, but it wasn't just family hiring. When she graduated from teacher's college she was given three consecutive unadvertised contracts at the school where she did her student teaching and now she was full-time. He started to wonder if OECTA had any influence in hiring at all or if it was just an empty shell to make teachers think they had job security in case something happened. He is single, he has never married and he has no children and he has never owned a home but he has been paying union dues for several years but he's wondering what good it has done him. He thinks young people should think very carefully before they go thousands and thousands of dollars into debt trying to become a teacher in Ontario but they don't have family in the profession. He says think it over very, very hard. He thinks there should be independent schools.)
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(Starting in 2003 the manager of human resources with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, (TCDSB), sent out letters to substitute teachers who had completed long-term occasional contracts, (LTO's), telling them that they had been placed on the Eligible to Hire List and this list would be used to award future contracts and full-time teaching positions with the board. In 2010, suddenly, Gary Poole, the Superintendent of Human Resources with the board, announced publicly that there was no Eligible to Hire List and all substitute teachers and everyone else, too, should stop asking about it. Felix Salazar, the President of the Toronto Occasional Teachers Local, dutifully announced in his section of the quarterly newsletter, that there was no Eligible to Hire List with the board and everyone should stop asking about it. I'm assuming that after misleading hundreds of substitute teachers that they had an even chance to get a full-time, permanent teaching position so they could end up at the top of the salary scale earning $95,000 a year some day so they could afford to live in that city those substitute teachers probably kept phoning HR asking where they were on the list after a few years went by and after they heard about several well-connected family members who got full-time permanent right out of teacher's college, like the several I heard about. So HR and Gary Poole probably came up with this brilliant plan. And I'm assuming the local didn't want to rock-the-boat and ruin the quiet deal they had for getting retired teachers unadvertised contracts and full-time hiring of family so there would be very few grievances so they told everyone to just shut up in a newsletter. What do you think about this Catholic board and this Catholic teacher's union?)
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(A substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic, (TCDSB), shared the story about a conversation he had many years ago. He was talking to a man who was married and they had four children. He was working as a real estate agent. The teacher asked him how was business. His reply was not bad but there's a lot of competition in real estate and it takes a while to get established and to build-up clients. He told him that he was really kicking himself that he didn't take advantage of an offer from his father seven years before. His father was an instructor in a community college and he was coming up to retirement. He asked his son if he wanted to get a job as an instructor in his college. His son said no thanks. He thought he was going to make bigger money selling real estate. He was kicking himself at that time, though. He said to the man who would become a substitute teacher with TCDSB: "They can do that, you know? They can get someone a job just before they retire?" The other man didn't realize that. He said really? The other man confirmed what he had said. This is for all the union people who harass him and for his union that turned their backs on him in different positions. He says he hopes this finds you well and he plans to share more stories just like them.)
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Several years ago now a substitute teacher took an assignment at a school. When he arrived no one notified him that he had a bus duty at the end of the day. He went home when the classes ended. Later, the principal of that school wrote him up for dereliction of duty, a very serious offense. At the hearing the superintendent for the area where the incident happened asked the substitute teacher why he didn't cover the duty he had for the teacher who was away. He said no one told him that he had that bus duty. The superintendent agreed with him and he ruled that it was the responsibility of the school secretary and the principal to inform the visiting substitute teacher about the duties they have that day. The substitute teacher was not guilty of dereliction of duty. He went to the president of the local for substitute teachers and he asked him to help him get that discipline report off of his record. The president of the local, Felix Salazar, said no, I disagree with the superintendent. It is your responsibility to know what duties you have and to cover those duties. And that report is still on that substitute teachers record. And Felix Salazar is still the president of the occasional teachers local. Because that's how the Toronto Catholic District School Board works and that's how the union for teachers in Catholic schools in Ontario works, OECTA. And that substitute teacher has never had a contract position since then. Stop the unfairness and the corruption. Vote for political parties that are not in the pocket of teachers, their unions and school boards in the election of 2018.
A teacher with experience in First Nations communities says he believes there is a tremendous amount of resistance to learning and school work in schools in reserves because residential schools had the goal of taking the Indian out of the Indian. So many First Nations believe all education systems are trying to take the Indian out of the Indian, this is why teachers get so much resistance. How do you fix this?
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Are you happy with the public education system as it is now? Can you see how family hiring is affecting the outcomes and goals and objectives? Would you like to try the system the Americans have tried called charter schools and vouchers? This way parents can choose which school they want their child to go to. A voucher is an amount of money from their taxes that they give to the charter school they choose. Do you think this system would help parents get away from family hiring of those new teachers who have less experience and qualifications but the right family connections to get the job? Contact the political parties and tell them you are interested in improvements to the current education system by being able to choose a charter school for your child. You might get some resistance and stone-walling from political parties that make deals with teachers, their unions and school board officials who get jobs for family members under the current system.
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(I was told about a shop steward with a public school board east of Toronto who wanted to become a trustee. He ran a few terms ago and he easily got elected. Within 2 years his wife was hired into a lower-level position with the board. Within 2 years after that she leap-frogged over several more-experienced, more-qualified personnel with the board into a position at the second-highest level of the board. I am told there are several people with the board who are very unhappy over this family hiring of less-experienced and less-qualified board staff. Based on what I've heard the past two decades when you meet someone who has ANY position of employment with a school board in Canada you should ask yourself I wonder who they know to get their position. Help clean-up hiring in our public institutions that operate with our tax dollars. Send your children to private and independent schools.)
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(I was told about a Catholic school board in eastern Ontario that hired several new French teachers all at once. All had the right family connections. SEVERAL more experienced, qualified substitute teachers who were qualified to teach French were passed-over and were left trying to survive on substitute teacher pay. A man married to a teacher with the board who retired around that time said, "You wouldn't believe how they run this board" when he was told about the hiring.)
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2017/02/01/dismantle-our-school-boards-ditch-our-trustees-cohn.html
Two mothers affected by racism in York Region schools, Jacqui Testoni, left, and Charline Grant hug during a board meeting in Aurora. (J.P. MOCZULSKI / For The Toronto Star)
The latest massacre in Quebec brought Canadians together. But last year’s outbreak of prejudice in York Region has only pushed people apart.
Tragedy has a way of opening the heart, after the fact. Bigotry has a way of hardening the heart, in real time.
A bungled response from York’s school board, and its elected trustees, revealed not only religious discrimination but outright racism close to home. And speaks volumes about what’s wrong with our education system — systemic problems that require radical reform.
A classroom, like a place of worship, should be a sanctuary, a place of learning, fostering and welcoming. When parents learned that school principal Ghada Sadaka had posted anti-Islamic material online, they had every right to assume the school board would act forcefully, expeditiously, transparently.
Instead, they got an education in how school boards can retreat into opacity, obfuscation and obscurantism. A promised investigation into the principal’s misconduct was conducted in secret, and pointedly excluded the board’s equity expert — despite claims to the contrary.
Sadaka publicly “shared” videos on Facebook purportedly showing “Muslim takeovers” of European cities, and articles claiming refugees had “terrorist sympathies” in Canada. Belatedly apologizing for the “discriminatory” posts, the principal promised to learn “lessons” from the experience.
Give her credit for owning up to her mistakes — unlike the school board, which brings discredit upon itself by downplaying its errors. Thus compounding them.
Dismissing a black parent’s concerns about ongoing racism, York trustee Nancy Elgie used a racial slur — the N-word — in front of others. When the Star first sought comment in December, Elgie insisted, “there is no merit in the accusation.”After an investigation — and corroboration of the allegation — the veteran trustee changed her tune: “There is no excuse for what I said,” she admitted by email, acknowledging it was a “horribly unacceptable statement.”
The N-word is uttered, a complaint is falsely dismissed as having “no merit,” the trustee apologizes weeks later when caught out, yet still refuses to resign. Elgie’s suitability to serve evaporated with that slur, but by refusing to do the honourable thing — resign — she has destroyed her credibility irretrievably.
Against that backdrop of delay and dissembling, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has sent in two outside investigators to probe the board’s actions — and inaction. They will examine questions of both personal prejudice and financial probity, for it turns out that trustees at the York Region board have also been flying high — with some taking two or three trips to Finland, and jetting to the Netherlands.
Yet the York probe is hardly an isolated example of a rogue board requiring outside intervention. In 2014, the province launched an investigation into the dysfunctional Toronto District School Board, weighed down by over-reaching trustees and a director who couldn’t take direction. Toronto’s Catholic board, riven by trustee infighting and plagued by financial impropriety, was taken over by the province from 2008 to 2011, as were school boards in the Hamilton, Ottawa and Dufferin-Peel areas.
Every board’s abuses are different, each in their own way. Not every board is corrupt or incompetent. Racism isn’t rampant, but recurring episodes of prejudice and misconduct underscore how boards can’t cope with even the most elemental educational task — providing a safe and secure learning environment.
Our school boards share a common pattern: poor accountability, weak governance, excessive ambition. Most of Ontario’s 700 trustees are presumably dedicated and hard-working, but their mandate remains a mirage — with no taxing powers, nor any negotiating authority for teachers’ salaries.
Too many trustees are elected with abysmally low turnouts, because voters have no idea who they are — which is why so many incompetent incumbents cling to their seats. Too often they use school boards as stepping stones in their political careers, leaving a mess in their wake. They are part-timers just passing through, emasculated to the point of irrelevancy as they pretend to preside over unwieldy and unaccountable boards with sizable budgets.
Time to phase out their phantom jobs. And consolidate our splintered school boards under the rubric of regional authorities reporting directly to the education ministry.
That would restore a semblance of accountability to the broad electorate. And spare us the charade of perennial investigations (and provincial supervision) of rogue boards that are an embarrassment to the students they teach — and the parents they serve.
About 45 local residents and parents showed up to Century Public School on Jan. 25. The small school in the south end offers English programs and is on the school board hit list and local parents - many of whom are immigrants - want to save their neighbourhood school from closure. Julie Oliver / Postmedia
In a few weeks, Ottawa public school trustees will almost certainly vote to close six elementary schools and one high school, and they are just getting started. Across the city, there are 32 elementary schools and four high schools that are considered low enrolment. Not all of those will close, but plenty will.
As I said in my column last week, parents and school trustees are powerless to stop these changes because the provincial government has cut its support for building operations and education budgets are too tight to make the difference up elsewhere.
The fundamental problem is the erosion of local control over our schools. Trustees have to close schools and set off a cascade of changes throughout the city, all so they can save $2 million, less than 0.25 per cent of their budget.
Our Ottawa board, like others across the province, is going through the motions of public consultation but trustees don’t have the power to make real choices. That ended when the provincial government took away their taxing power during the Mike Harris era. Even if trustees wanted to keep these schools open, they couldn’t.
This is a problem that can be fixed, but people are going to have to stand up and demand a return of local education democracy. Parents who are upset about school closings and the disruption they will cause should make this their focus.
Step one is giving local school boards control over the education property tax dollars collected in their communities. In Ottawa, that was $488 million in 2015. Now, this money goes into provincial coffers and is cycled back to school boards to be spent as the province dictates.
The province pays the rest of the school bill from other tax revenues, and it should continue to do so. That would leave the province responsible for about 75 per cent of the cost of education and local boards the rest.
With control of spending, trustees would be able to make decisions about spending priorities, whether it is keeping schools open, offering more help to struggling learners or starting innovative new programs. Trustees should be allowed to approve small tax increases, if they can justify them to the public.
Giving trustees spending power is a change that would require legislation, but it would be relatively easy to do.
The bigger challenge is changing the structure of our boards. Giving trustees real work and responsibility is a big first step, but we have too many boards, too many trustees and too little leadership.
We have four school boards in Ottawa, although the French ones also cover territory outside the city. In all, we have 45 school trustees. Compare that to a city council of 23, plus the mayor. Sound like we have an excess of education politicians?
Let’s declare a temporary halt to arguments about religious and language rights and just focus on how we govern our schools. In Ontario, public education doesn’t unite our children, it divides them into separate little worlds. Is that for the benefit of the kids or the adults?Personally, I have no objection to Catholic schools or French schools, but do we really need separate boards of trustees and separate administrative structures to run them? Why not offer these programs under the umbrella of one public board, since all our variants are publicly funded?
That approach could give us a school trustee group that is half the size we have now, with Catholic, French, French Catholic and public supporters electing their own representatives to sit on the central board.
The final piece, and it’s critical, is direct election of a school board chair. Think of the position as a mayor for education. As it is, no trustee has a broad mandate to act and there is no forum for voters to make choices about big educational issues.
We can make our schools better and it starts with local responsibility and local control. Let’s take back our schools.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa commentator, novelist and former Ontario PC candidate. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com
(Anyone having difficulty leaving a comment on this site can email me their comment at teachhard@gmail.com and I will copy and paste it onto the blog, as long as it isn't inappropriate.)
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(A former substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic tells me he used to work as a clerk with the Government of Canada in the mid-1990's. They had cutbacks and layoffs. He thought the competition to decide who got laid off was unfair. He asked the president of his local to grieve the competition. She said she couldn't. He said why not. She said because there was no clause in the collective agreement to use as the basis for the grievance. He asked why not. She said for many years unions and workers had been taking weak collective bargaining agreements in exchange for jobs for sons and daughters of employees especially at retirement. He didn't get a grievance and he didn't get his job back. He says he's not too happy about it even now.)
(A former substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic tells me he used to work as a clerk with the Government of Canada in the mid-1990's. They had cutbacks and layoffs. He thought the competition to decide who got laid off was unfair. He asked the president of his local to grieve the competition. She said she couldn't. He said why not. She said because there was no clause in the collective agreement to use as the basis for the grievance. He asked why not. She said for many years unions and workers had been taking weak collective bargaining agreements in exchange for jobs for sons and daughters of employees especially at retirement. He didn't get a grievance and he didn't get his job back. He says he's not too happy about it even now.)
(An experienced teacher recently told me about a situation that he is very seriously concerned about for the safety of students. He says that the difficult students in the academic classes are being pushed into the shop classes. A teacher says that students are showing up stoned and they are also stoned after lunch period. A teacher who discussed this with a shop teacher is afraid something could happen with students using machines and vehicles if they are under-the-influence. The person who told me said the teacher is worried that they may be disciplined instead of the students. The teacher feels unspoken pressure to say nothing because at least the students are attending school so the school is not losing funding but the school will lose funding if they expel students who are consistently stoned so they allow stoned students to come to school day-after-day. The person who raised their concerns with me is afraid this danger could exist in every high school in Ontario.)
A teacher sent me this information as a result of very serious concern over ever worsening student behaviour in the classroom and a lack of discipline and a lack of support from their union.
Anti - teacher YouTube videos by students, have reached a vicious level. This is to provide a snapshot of 3 of the worst of them.
Teachers
are vilified for fun and to get them fired. This is a guide for
teachers as to what is out there. It begs the question what are unions
and school boards doing to protect staff ? ?
YouTube " how to get your teacher fired" provides a general search location. A deeper look shows these sites:
1) HOW I GOT MY SEXIST PRINCIPAL FIRED - by TANA MONGEAU
Tana is very big in the trash teacher genre. Her videos have up to 6,000,000 views
- here cool girl Tana brags about how she supposedly got her principal fired in in Gr. 5. Video full of swear words.
-
issue was how much eye shadow she could wear. Teacher / Principal say
it is way to much, looked awful ( Tana admits she looked like a baby
hooker)
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Tana gets parents to push back. ( nothing in rules against
eyeshadow). Went around Principal to head of school board, a friend of
her dad's. Principal supposedly fired over issue, much to Tana's glee
Comment
- video is viciously anti teacher / principal. Glorifies getting them fired for fun / retribution
- Tana has a huge YouTube following. Has 10 + videos, including "How I made my teacher cry"
2) HOW TO GET YOUR TEACHER FIRED - by COREY DRAKE
Corey provides student tutorial on how to get teacher fired. Called " grandfather of genre"
- hate your teacher? Sure you can get them fired. Alleged sexual touching is a good story
- coaches students on best words and body language to use with Principal
- do not worry kids, because there are NO CONSEQUENCES
Comment
- Corey started this 2012 or earlier. Can't tell total views.
- had 4 + instructional videos. Were reviewed by Houston Teachers Federation in 2014.(DailyDot)
- so offensive, videos pulled off You Tube. Crept back on 2016
3) HOW I GOT MY 5 TH GRADE TEACHER FIRED - by Da - Shankapotomos
- guy tells story of how he got 5th gr. teacher fired. 2,905,000 views
- retells story, while screen shows him shooting many people on " call of duty"
- new teacher used progressive warnings on misbehaviour. He hates it. Always at highest level
( sassed the teacher daily)
- got together with other " bad guy" students. set up petition. Gr. 5 if no want Ms. Iris to teach us, sign
-
not enough signatures. Took to cafeteria with gr 4 and under. Change
wording " if want free ice cream for rest of year sign" = lots of
signatures
- teacher moved to library. Next year was gone
Comment
- get together with other bad behavior students. Lie or distort petition to get rid of teacher
- what lessons are students getting from all this ?
TRASHING TEACHERS / GETTING THEM FIRED HAS BECOME BIG PASSTIME ON YOU TUBE.
HOW WILL TEACHERS UNIONS AND SCHOOL BOARDS BETTER PROTECT TEACHERS ?
from : CONCERNED TEACHERS WHO HAVE BEEN THERE May 2017
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(A teacher tells me that when he did his student-teaching an experienced teacher, his associate teacher, told him that OECTA ran workshops for teachers years ago to explain to them that the people who organize and run the modern education system in Ontario had changed the model from one where there was discipline to minimize student behaviour problems and to maximize student learning to an education system model that maximized student empowerment, minimized teacher empowerment and authority and minimized school board liability. He said the reason for this was because of too many teachers using physical force to control student behaviour and the criminal investigations that followed and the charges and lawsuits that resulted. So the current education system is not designed to maximize student learning or teacher authority. If you hear about teacher burnout, low test scores, a high turnover rate of teachers, rowdy classes that your kids are in, and lower scores in provincial and international tests then perhaps this could be a large part of the cause.)
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(Several years ago a substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic, (TCDSB), told another sub some examples of family hiring in the board that he had heard about. A young man graduated from teacher's college and he was given three consecutive, unadvertised contract positions. The first two he was not qualified for. But he got them because his mother was the secretary at a Catholic elementary school near Woodbine and O'Connor. He took the courses he needed to become a special education teacher and the contracts were with those classes so he was qualified for the third unadvertised contract that he was given. After that he was made a full-time, permanent special education teacher with the board. The substitute speculated about a deal with the secretaries union to help their children get unadvertised contracts. The reason why he believed that was because of a second example. A young woman graduated from York U. teacher's college and somehow became certified to teach in Ontario almost immediately upon graduating. She was given assignments immediately by the TCDSB especially at an elementary school near Markham Road and Ellesmere. She wasn't always seen as the greatest teacher because sometimes she told the students to work independently and she was on the classroom computer the whole class. A few months later another substitute teacher saw her at another elementary school. He was working there as a substitute teacher. He said hi to her and he asked if she was doing substitute teaching. She said no, she had been really lucky. She got a maternity leave contract position, (LTO). He said that's great. He thought that she must know someone with the board because he had been trying to get a contract position all summer but he didn't get a single interview. The school they were at was a French Immersion school near Ellesmere and Victoria Park Avenue. She asked him if he spoke French. He said, "Oui, je parle un peut de francais mais je ne suis pas bilingue." She said wow, that's great, I don't even understand that much. Give your name and phone number to the school secretary, she's my mother, and you'll get lots of calls here. He said ok. And he understood how she got that maternity-leave contract position even though she just graduated and only had two months of experience as a substitute teacher and the contract wasn't advertised because if it was he would have applied for it because he had realized that he couldn't survive in Toronto on substitute teachers pay, he was sinking deeper into debt every month. He eventually went bankrupt and he's still bitter that his union allowed this to happen because of all the family hiring they allow in a union shop instead of fighting for the hiring of the most qualified. One other example of unfair hiring the two substitute teachers talked about was when one of them went to a workshop at a school in the west end. He sat beside a young woman who looked like a new graduate. They talked for a few minutes before the workshop started. She asked him if he was a substitute teacher or if he was a full-timer. He said he was a substitute teacher. He thought she was probably wondering since he was 45 by that time. He said he still wasn't getting steady contracts or full-time because of all of the family hiring with the board. She said yes, but it wasn't just family hiring. When she graduated from teacher's college she was given three consecutive unadvertised contracts at the school where she did her student teaching and now she was full-time. He started to wonder if OECTA had any influence in hiring at all or if it was just an empty shell to make teachers think they had job security in case something happened. He is single, he has never married and he has no children and he has never owned a home but he has been paying union dues for several years but he's wondering what good it has done him. He thinks young people should think very carefully before they go thousands and thousands of dollars into debt trying to become a teacher in Ontario but they don't have family in the profession. He says think it over very, very hard. He thinks there should be independent schools.)
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(Starting in 2003 the manager of human resources with the Toronto Catholic District School Board, (TCDSB), sent out letters to substitute teachers who had completed long-term occasional contracts, (LTO's), telling them that they had been placed on the Eligible to Hire List and this list would be used to award future contracts and full-time teaching positions with the board. In 2010, suddenly, Gary Poole, the Superintendent of Human Resources with the board, announced publicly that there was no Eligible to Hire List and all substitute teachers and everyone else, too, should stop asking about it. Felix Salazar, the President of the Toronto Occasional Teachers Local, dutifully announced in his section of the quarterly newsletter, that there was no Eligible to Hire List with the board and everyone should stop asking about it. I'm assuming that after misleading hundreds of substitute teachers that they had an even chance to get a full-time, permanent teaching position so they could end up at the top of the salary scale earning $95,000 a year some day so they could afford to live in that city those substitute teachers probably kept phoning HR asking where they were on the list after a few years went by and after they heard about several well-connected family members who got full-time permanent right out of teacher's college, like the several I heard about. So HR and Gary Poole probably came up with this brilliant plan. And I'm assuming the local didn't want to rock-the-boat and ruin the quiet deal they had for getting retired teachers unadvertised contracts and full-time hiring of family so there would be very few grievances so they told everyone to just shut up in a newsletter. What do you think about this Catholic board and this Catholic teacher's union?)
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(A substitute teacher with Toronto Catholic, (TCDSB), shared the story about a conversation he had many years ago. He was talking to a man who was married and they had four children. He was working as a real estate agent. The teacher asked him how was business. His reply was not bad but there's a lot of competition in real estate and it takes a while to get established and to build-up clients. He told him that he was really kicking himself that he didn't take advantage of an offer from his father seven years before. His father was an instructor in a community college and he was coming up to retirement. He asked his son if he wanted to get a job as an instructor in his college. His son said no thanks. He thought he was going to make bigger money selling real estate. He was kicking himself at that time, though. He said to the man who would become a substitute teacher with TCDSB: "They can do that, you know? They can get someone a job just before they retire?" The other man didn't realize that. He said really? The other man confirmed what he had said. This is for all the union people who harass him and for his union that turned their backs on him in different positions. He says he hopes this finds you well and he plans to share more stories just like them.)
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Several years ago now a substitute teacher took an assignment at a school. When he arrived no one notified him that he had a bus duty at the end of the day. He went home when the classes ended. Later, the principal of that school wrote him up for dereliction of duty, a very serious offense. At the hearing the superintendent for the area where the incident happened asked the substitute teacher why he didn't cover the duty he had for the teacher who was away. He said no one told him that he had that bus duty. The superintendent agreed with him and he ruled that it was the responsibility of the school secretary and the principal to inform the visiting substitute teacher about the duties they have that day. The substitute teacher was not guilty of dereliction of duty. He went to the president of the local for substitute teachers and he asked him to help him get that discipline report off of his record. The president of the local, Felix Salazar, said no, I disagree with the superintendent. It is your responsibility to know what duties you have and to cover those duties. And that report is still on that substitute teachers record. And Felix Salazar is still the president of the occasional teachers local. Because that's how the Toronto Catholic District School Board works and that's how the union for teachers in Catholic schools in Ontario works, OECTA. And that substitute teacher has never had a contract position since then. Stop the unfairness and the corruption. Vote for political parties that are not in the pocket of teachers, their unions and school boards in the election of 2018.
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If
you know anyone who is thinking about becoming a teacher in Ontario,
Canada but they don't have a family connection to help them get a
full-time position tell them to forget it. Even if they could get a
contract position it would probably be one in a school where the
well-connected teacher didn't want it because it is too rough and too
dangerous to their teacher's certificate. Another challenge new teachers
are facing is that retired teachers come back and get unadvertised
contracts in a union shop, if you can imagine, and few new teachers can
get out of substitute teaching which grinds you up. The full-time
teachers don't care if you have a bad day because you're not family.
They don't give their class consequences. More people want charter
schools and vouchers. It will reduce the tax load by 15-20%.
*********************************************************************************A teacher with experience in First Nations communities says he believes there is a tremendous amount of resistance to learning and school work in schools in reserves because residential schools had the goal of taking the Indian out of the Indian. So many First Nations believe all education systems are trying to take the Indian out of the Indian, this is why teachers get so much resistance. How do you fix this?
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Are you happy with the public education system as it is now? Can you see how family hiring is affecting the outcomes and goals and objectives? Would you like to try the system the Americans have tried called charter schools and vouchers? This way parents can choose which school they want their child to go to. A voucher is an amount of money from their taxes that they give to the charter school they choose. Do you think this system would help parents get away from family hiring of those new teachers who have less experience and qualifications but the right family connections to get the job? Contact the political parties and tell them you are interested in improvements to the current education system by being able to choose a charter school for your child. You might get some resistance and stone-walling from political parties that make deals with teachers, their unions and school board officials who get jobs for family members under the current system.
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Unions take weak collective bargaining
agreements in exchange for jobs for sons and daughters especially when
the union member is almost retiring. A substitute teacher says he worked
as a Modular Support Clerk with the federal government in the early
1990's. The government decided they would lay-off some workers. The
government department ran a competition to see who stayed and who was
laid-off. He says it was a fixed written competition. The questions
favoured those who worked in a particular section of the office. He
asked to grieve the competition because it was not fair to everyone. His
request was turned down. The president of the local told him his
request for a grievance was turned down because there was no clause to
use as the basis of the grievance because unions were taking very weak
collective bargaining agreements compared to 50 years before and were
getting jobs for family members just before they retired. This is why
you literally need family in many union shops to get hired there. I have
put this on here again because a substitute teacher with TCDSB who is
very bitter he went bankrupt because his union wouldn't fight for him
reports he was harassed by two people as he came out of church today, on
Good Friday. A man said to a young woman, "There he is, that's him." He
has told many people all of the examples of family hiring he has heard
about. He is not popular. HAPPY EASTER UNION PEOPLE!
*********************************************************************************(I was told about a shop steward with a public school board east of Toronto who wanted to become a trustee. He ran a few terms ago and he easily got elected. Within 2 years his wife was hired into a lower-level position with the board. Within 2 years after that she leap-frogged over several more-experienced, more-qualified personnel with the board into a position at the second-highest level of the board. I am told there are several people with the board who are very unhappy over this family hiring of less-experienced and less-qualified board staff. Based on what I've heard the past two decades when you meet someone who has ANY position of employment with a school board in Canada you should ask yourself I wonder who they know to get their position. Help clean-up hiring in our public institutions that operate with our tax dollars. Send your children to private and independent schools.)
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(I was told about a Catholic school board in eastern Ontario that hired several new French teachers all at once. All had the right family connections. SEVERAL more experienced, qualified substitute teachers who were qualified to teach French were passed-over and were left trying to survive on substitute teacher pay. A man married to a teacher with the board who retired around that time said, "You wouldn't believe how they run this board" when he was told about the hiring.)
Dismantle our school boards, ditch our trustees: Cohn
Ontario’s rogue school boards are an embarrassment to the students they teach — and the parents they serve.Two mothers affected by racism in York Region schools, Jacqui Testoni, left, and Charline Grant hug during a board meeting in Aurora. (J.P. MOCZULSKI / For The Toronto Star)
By Martin Regg Cohn Ontario Politics Columnist
Wed., Feb. 1, 2017
Islamophobia struck a Quebec mosque this week.But it touched the Toronto area long before — when a Markham school principal lashed out, last year, at Muslims online.The latest massacre in Quebec brought Canadians together. But last year’s outbreak of prejudice in York Region has only pushed people apart.
Tragedy has a way of opening the heart, after the fact. Bigotry has a way of hardening the heart, in real time.
A bungled response from York’s school board, and its elected trustees, revealed not only religious discrimination but outright racism close to home. And speaks volumes about what’s wrong with our education system — systemic problems that require radical reform.
A classroom, like a place of worship, should be a sanctuary, a place of learning, fostering and welcoming. When parents learned that school principal Ghada Sadaka had posted anti-Islamic material online, they had every right to assume the school board would act forcefully, expeditiously, transparently.
Instead, they got an education in how school boards can retreat into opacity, obfuscation and obscurantism. A promised investigation into the principal’s misconduct was conducted in secret, and pointedly excluded the board’s equity expert — despite claims to the contrary.
Sadaka publicly “shared” videos on Facebook purportedly showing “Muslim takeovers” of European cities, and articles claiming refugees had “terrorist sympathies” in Canada. Belatedly apologizing for the “discriminatory” posts, the principal promised to learn “lessons” from the experience.
Give her credit for owning up to her mistakes — unlike the school board, which brings discredit upon itself by downplaying its errors. Thus compounding them.
Dismissing a black parent’s concerns about ongoing racism, York trustee Nancy Elgie used a racial slur — the N-word — in front of others. When the Star first sought comment in December, Elgie insisted, “there is no merit in the accusation.”After an investigation — and corroboration of the allegation — the veteran trustee changed her tune: “There is no excuse for what I said,” she admitted by email, acknowledging it was a “horribly unacceptable statement.”
The N-word is uttered, a complaint is falsely dismissed as having “no merit,” the trustee apologizes weeks later when caught out, yet still refuses to resign. Elgie’s suitability to serve evaporated with that slur, but by refusing to do the honourable thing — resign — she has destroyed her credibility irretrievably.
Against that backdrop of delay and dissembling, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has sent in two outside investigators to probe the board’s actions — and inaction. They will examine questions of both personal prejudice and financial probity, for it turns out that trustees at the York Region board have also been flying high — with some taking two or three trips to Finland, and jetting to the Netherlands.
Yet the York probe is hardly an isolated example of a rogue board requiring outside intervention. In 2014, the province launched an investigation into the dysfunctional Toronto District School Board, weighed down by over-reaching trustees and a director who couldn’t take direction. Toronto’s Catholic board, riven by trustee infighting and plagued by financial impropriety, was taken over by the province from 2008 to 2011, as were school boards in the Hamilton, Ottawa and Dufferin-Peel areas.
Every board’s abuses are different, each in their own way. Not every board is corrupt or incompetent. Racism isn’t rampant, but recurring episodes of prejudice and misconduct underscore how boards can’t cope with even the most elemental educational task — providing a safe and secure learning environment.
Our school boards share a common pattern: poor accountability, weak governance, excessive ambition. Most of Ontario’s 700 trustees are presumably dedicated and hard-working, but their mandate remains a mirage — with no taxing powers, nor any negotiating authority for teachers’ salaries.
Too many trustees are elected with abysmally low turnouts, because voters have no idea who they are — which is why so many incompetent incumbents cling to their seats. Too often they use school boards as stepping stones in their political careers, leaving a mess in their wake. They are part-timers just passing through, emasculated to the point of irrelevancy as they pretend to preside over unwieldy and unaccountable boards with sizable budgets.
Time to phase out their phantom jobs. And consolidate our splintered school boards under the rubric of regional authorities reporting directly to the education ministry.
That would restore a semblance of accountability to the broad electorate. And spare us the charade of perennial investigations (and provincial supervision) of rogue boards that are an embarrassment to the students they teach — and the parents they serve.
Martin Regg Cohn’s political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn
Denley: We should combine school boards and cut trustees
Randall Denley will sign copies of his new novel, The Situation, Dec. 5 at the Canal Gallery in Merrickville. Randall DenleyPublished on: February 1, 2017 | Last Updated: February 2, 2017 12:05 PM EST About 45 local residents and parents showed up to Century Public School on Jan. 25. The small school in the south end offers English programs and is on the school board hit list and local parents - many of whom are immigrants - want to save their neighbourhood school from closure. Julie Oliver / Postmedia
In a few weeks, Ottawa public school trustees will almost certainly vote to close six elementary schools and one high school, and they are just getting started. Across the city, there are 32 elementary schools and four high schools that are considered low enrolment. Not all of those will close, but plenty will.
As I said in my column last week, parents and school trustees are powerless to stop these changes because the provincial government has cut its support for building operations and education budgets are too tight to make the difference up elsewhere.
The fundamental problem is the erosion of local control over our schools. Trustees have to close schools and set off a cascade of changes throughout the city, all so they can save $2 million, less than 0.25 per cent of their budget.
Our Ottawa board, like others across the province, is going through the motions of public consultation but trustees don’t have the power to make real choices. That ended when the provincial government took away their taxing power during the Mike Harris era. Even if trustees wanted to keep these schools open, they couldn’t.
This is a problem that can be fixed, but people are going to have to stand up and demand a return of local education democracy. Parents who are upset about school closings and the disruption they will cause should make this their focus.
Step one is giving local school boards control over the education property tax dollars collected in their communities. In Ottawa, that was $488 million in 2015. Now, this money goes into provincial coffers and is cycled back to school boards to be spent as the province dictates.
The province pays the rest of the school bill from other tax revenues, and it should continue to do so. That would leave the province responsible for about 75 per cent of the cost of education and local boards the rest.
With control of spending, trustees would be able to make decisions about spending priorities, whether it is keeping schools open, offering more help to struggling learners or starting innovative new programs. Trustees should be allowed to approve small tax increases, if they can justify them to the public.
Giving trustees spending power is a change that would require legislation, but it would be relatively easy to do.
The bigger challenge is changing the structure of our boards. Giving trustees real work and responsibility is a big first step, but we have too many boards, too many trustees and too little leadership.
We have four school boards in Ottawa, although the French ones also cover territory outside the city. In all, we have 45 school trustees. Compare that to a city council of 23, plus the mayor. Sound like we have an excess of education politicians?
Let’s declare a temporary halt to arguments about religious and language rights and just focus on how we govern our schools. In Ontario, public education doesn’t unite our children, it divides them into separate little worlds. Is that for the benefit of the kids or the adults?Personally, I have no objection to Catholic schools or French schools, but do we really need separate boards of trustees and separate administrative structures to run them? Why not offer these programs under the umbrella of one public board, since all our variants are publicly funded?
That approach could give us a school trustee group that is half the size we have now, with Catholic, French, French Catholic and public supporters electing their own representatives to sit on the central board.
The final piece, and it’s critical, is direct election of a school board chair. Think of the position as a mayor for education. As it is, no trustee has a broad mandate to act and there is no forum for voters to make choices about big educational issues.
We can make our schools better and it starts with local responsibility and local control. Let’s take back our schools.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa commentator, novelist and former Ontario PC candidate. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com
