There is really no way of knowing what is meant by nebulous terms like “a culture of fear” at the Toronto and District School Board. Possibly some teachers and staff were being threatened by trustees in a way that readers might recognize. Or maybe there was just a lot of neighbourhood and union politics at work. One stated alarm was fear of the use of email. That sounds paranoid, stupid or both. But these are the scary concerns being broadcast The special report written by Margaret Wilson for the education minister never gets down to cases, even anonymously. Too bad. It is clear however that there are an awful lot of people trying to run the TDSB. Trustees with as many as three assistants each, the school board staff, the principals and teachers and the parent associations. It’s too much. The unique thing about schools is that they send home a special agent every evening to tell mom and dad what happened. Very little gets overlooked in the day to day life of children at school. This is as it should be. It does not require the structure now in place. The trustee system is antiquated, expensive and confusing. This is an opportunity for the provincial government to reform the administration of schools. It need not be as simple as eliminating the trustees, but that would be a good start.
