My three years into a first-time four-year term as a Trustee of a public schoolboard is likely the clearest window of the on-the-job expectations.
It includes understanding and applying provincial legislation; examining the objectives and mandates of the learning exercise in the public realm for elementary and secondary institutions; in depth analysis of oversight and financial/fiduciary responsibility; advocating on behalf of the municipal families within the afore mentioned culture; working collaboratively with the Director of Education; and critical thinking as a group of like-minded fellow Trustees. We are simply Trustees, addressing local learning objectives through sound governance and policy implementation according to provincial mandates and guidelines. We are paid honourariums determined by the number of students in our catchment area. In our case there are approximately 27,000 students and that works out to be $27.00 per month per student or $1000/month before taxes. On average we attend full board meetings, three or four subcommittee meetings, take professional development courses, respond to constituent inquiries, ground breakings and school openings, convocations, celebrations and in-camera meetings just to list a few. In some months more, other months less averaging about $20 per hour… yes slightly over minimum wage and all hours of the day. The money is never the motivation!
What we are NOT is equally as important.
We are not City Councillors. We are not managers of day-to-day operations. We have no taxing authority. We are not employees of the board. We are not responsible for determining staff or union salaries (with the exception of our one employee, the Director of Education).
The documents that drive our decision-making are the Education Act, determining and monitoring the Long Term Strategic Plan of each board and of course federal and provincial legislation surrounding health and safety and labour for employees and students.
In the big picture, there are 72 boards across Ontario: 31 English public, 37 Catholic separate and four French public, each with an average of ten trustees elected locally. Some of the issues are common like funding or transportation or provincial mandates, some are more locally specific like building or renovating existing schools, managing shifting demographics (creating growth or diminishing capacity), or keeping the needs of special education students uppermost in their individual learning opportunities.
There are around 5,000 schools in the Ontario public system, kindergarten to grade 12, and serving over 2 million students. In most of these boards, they represent the top 1-5 of the largest employers, union and non-union, in their respective municipalities.
Why is this detail important? Because we are not groomed or trained to take on this responsibility. There are no prerequisites for the job such as education or industry credentials, coincidentally equivalent to any other elected public position. Your neighbours and strangers elect you, that is the only job interview. There is no political party partisanship included in the process: you are a citizen in good standing from your municipality; are passionate about the issues in education; and hopefully bring a collaborative common sense attitude to the table. In other words, we are each a clean canvas accepting the colours we are painted with as we grow over time and agree to learn, lead and act as an inspiration for our community and our students.
Individually, of occasion, we make mistakes as we learn. In my opinion, these mistakes are human and don’t define us but inform us such that we learn and adjust accordingly. With the global uncertainty and access to a mix of both clear and misinformed opinion it is not surprising that rhetoric often supersedes judgement.
Often the most heated passions can be resolved with a simple apology. And the strongest apology is a change in behavior.
John Bradford
