WATCH: Mark Carcasole reports on the results of an external review of the TDSB, revealing a “culture of fear.”
TORONTO – An external review of the Toronto District School Board released Thursday revealed senior staff and school administrators thought their phones and email were monitored. The report’s author said that feeling is one symptom of a “culture of fear” rampant throughout the board.
“It was obvious that they knew we were arranging meetings with specific people,” Margaret Wilson, the report’s author said during a press conference at Queen’s Park.
Wilson said the “culture of fear” was so dreadful senior staff as well as principals and vice-principals were using personal phones and email to discuss work because they were afraid the board’s systems were being monitored.
One example of this, Wilson said, came up when interview subjects were asked about their meeting with Wilson during the review period despite not telling anyone about the meeting.
“I was deeply disturbed. I’ve dealt with this level of professionals throughout my career. I’ve never interviewed people before where they burst into tears, they were under such stress,” Wilson said.
“They would come in and say, they know I’m here, could I get fired? The level of fear in very senior staff is dreadful.”
WATCH: Liz Sandals lays out her directives for the TDSB.
School trustee and board chair Shaun Chen wouldn’t directly address the allegations of monitoring emails and phone calls or a “culture of fear” during a press conference Thursday but did say he’d make sure each one of the government’s directives was “tackled.”
He did however admit board operations may have been affected by “a lack of public confidence” in the school board.
“I want to be clear the lack of public confidence in the board that we have experienced is very troubling,” he said. “I believe that when there is a lack of public confidence in the board, everyone suffers.”
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Education Minister Liz Sandals described the allegations as “appalling.”
“What it does is it confirms what a number of people have said about a culture of fear,” Sandals said. “The job of a principal is to make sure the children in the school are receiving the best education policy… not managing local politics.”
Wilson, the former registrar at the Ontario College of Teachers, said the culture of fear at the TDSB is worse now than when it was first identified in a 2013 report.
“This is a problem that we need to deal with quickly because clearly there is an intolerable work environment in some parts of the TDSB. So yes, we need to fix this,” Sandals said.
Sandals issued 11 directives to the board Thursday which included removing trustees from the promotions process as a result of the review.
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But the Ontario government did not go so far as to appoint a supervisor which would oversee Canada’s largest school board. Sandals said they chose not to go that route because, in part, there was no precedent for it.
Supervisors have only been appointed to deal with budget deficits, she said.
“The board is not currently running a deficit,” Sandals said. “I do not at this point have the authority to appoint a supervisor.”
The report also criticizes the board for disregarding Ontario’s wage-freeze legislation and suggests the board’s director’s salary should be reduced from $289,000 to $272,000.
But neither Chen or TDSB director Donna Quan said they would reduce her salary. Instead, Chen said the board would make a “democratic decision” based on each government recommendation.
– With files from The Canadian Press
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