Friday, October 4, 2019
Following a difficult and frustrating week for school board trustees across the country, we watch our colleagues in Quebec under the threat of a potentially devastating piece of legislation tabled by their provincial government. The CSBA, our members and the communities we represent across the country are shocked and dismayed to hear the Quebec provincial government’s interest in robbing its French-speaking citizens of a public education system governed by democratically elected community members dedicated to public education.
RK ON THE ISSUES
FIRST NATIONS, MÉTIS AND INUIT EDUCATION – Advocacy activities have included communications and meetings with the offices of INAC, provincial Premiers and the Prime Minister to call for appropriate funding for FNMI education as well as clarity on plans that will affect education following the Daniels vs. Canada case. Furthermore, we are working with and have offered our full support to the AFN and their initiatives in education. We have been following up on valuable resources provided by partners at the NCTR Round Table in January and have posted them on the CSBA website (including treaty maps, teacher resources and information to support recognition of treaty and traditional territories). Since January, we have completed work on a cross country portrait, also on our website, showing school board structure with FNMI representation, board progress with regards to the TRC Calls to Action and some promising practices today. Going forward, the committee will continue to monitor the framework that the federal ministries, INAC and FCSD are putting together on Childcare; gather information on voluntary self-identification of staff, trustees and students; examine existing agreements between First Nations communities and boards and look into permanency policy for Indigenous teachers.
STUDENT HEALTH AND WELLNESS – After collaborating with several national partners, the CSBA has adopted a Charter of Commitment to Student Health and Wellness. It provides a clear mission, terms of reference and a framework for our work. The Charter is available on our website. Following some collaborative work with the Pan-Canadian Joint Consortium on School Health (JCSH) which represents the ministries of both Health and Education in all Canadian jurisdictions, we have added three outstanding tools to our Health and Wellness Resources, all of which are free and bilingual: Positive Mental Health Tool Kit, Youth Engagement Tool Kit, Healthy School Planner. As there is already significant work being done in individual jurisdictions on substance abuse, the SHWC committee will be doing a policy framework survey before providing recommendations for school boards on the Legalization of Cannabis. Our collaboration with Respect in Schools is being developed with a view to providing a ministry supported, national on-line training baseline on abuse, harassment and bullying for all adults who work with youth. The two recent issues of Facts on Education, published in collaboration with CEA address two health and wellness issues, providing research on The Most Effective to Ways to Support Student Mental Wellness and The Best Way to Successfully Integrate Recent Immigrants into Canadian Classrooms (see www.cdnsba.org). We are also working on a National School Health Checklist to help boards identify strengths and weaknesses in their schools.
COPYRIGHT – We continue to monitor the 2017 Federal review of copyright regulations and the impact changes could have on schools and students. CSBA is ready to defend “fair dealing” on a national scale, assisting at the CMEC coalition, with several other concerned partners.
“A democratic form of government, a democratic way of life, presupposes free public education over a long period. It presupposes also an education for personal responsibility that too often
Stephen Hansen, an independent consultant with years of experience in education, provides a clear and firm rebuttal to a recent article that groups all trustees in with a few “bad apples.” Never doubt for a moment that our Canadian education system, while far from perfect, is one of the most successful in the world and elected commissioners/trustees have been central to that success.
When it comes to education governance, the national trend in recent years has been towards a troubling centralization of decision-making power, despite research that suggests school boards provide an effective way to improve student learning and increase local participation in school management.
