TORONTO – A candidate for a job as a Halton District School Board Trustee is taking aim at the board for approving a $72,000 professional development retreat for staff.
Over 320 principals and other HDSB staff shared rooms for two days at the luxurious Nottawasaga Resort in Alliston over the summer.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” says Mary Dilly; a candidate for wards 1 and 2.
Dilly sat on the board as a trustee between 2006 and 2010 and is running for a second stint this year.
She says the retreat used to cost around $40,000 but could be held locally for even cheaper.
“I think we should go to Robert Bateman School here in Burlington and have an all day conference; have a great dinner; have someone come in and cater the dinner and have everyone go home to their own beds.”
HDSB Director of Education David Euale admits the professional development workshops could be held locally and without the overnight component. In fact, he says they have been before.
“The idea of being an overnight is it gives teachers and principals time to consolidate the learning,” Euale said adding that having to pack up and head straight home is counterintuitive.
“It’s more important that they talk about what they’ve heard, rather than sit and listen to the theory that is offered to them at these workshops.”
School board spending is always heavily scrutinized. But the details of the retreat come as Indigo runs its “Adopt A School” program which offers books for schools that apply.
There are three school vying for donated books which fall within HDSB jurisdiction: Montclair and New Central Public Schools in Oakville, and Ryerson Public School in Burlington.
Donna Clarke is the grandmother of a New Central PS student.
“Do the principals really need to go on a fancy retreat? My vote would be no,” she says, claiming books are far more important.
No one is denying that school staff need education too; and in the grand scheme of a school board budget $72,000 is not a large chunk. Though it is $32,000 more than budgeted in previous years.
“I just think it could be done in a more economical way,” says Dilly.
She admits to having attended the same retreat when she was on the Board. She says it was held at the Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville in those days and that she and some other Trustees chose to spend the night at a nearby Holiday Inn to save the board money.
“It was $103.”
It is unknown whether the HDSB will reconsider the location and format of next year’s retreat.
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