Trustees question school board's proposed professionalism policy

Halton District School Board (HDSB) trustees received a proposed professionalism policy last night and some pushed board staff members on why existing standards could not be enforced sooner.

Their questions to Director of Education Curtis Ennis and Superintendent of Human Resources Sari Taha followed a six-month controversy that has seen the school board face criticism for failing to address the presentation in the classroom of a female-identifying teacher who has been teaching while sporting enormous prosthetic breasts and revealing clothing at an Oakville high school.

For the first time, Ennis spoke directly to the effects on the school community.

"Our board has received a tremendous amount of attention on this policy," he said. "I want to also acknowledge that there have been threats against our students and our schools and our staff and these have been distressing and heartbreaking."

He continued: "We can disagree but to threaten students in schools is simply unacceptable. It has not been easy and, in many incidences, the personal attacks on members of our team, on trustees, on staff, has been disheartening."

Ennis said he has dedicated over 27 years to education and pointed out HDSB is considered one of the highest-achieving school areas in Ontario. "I can tell you that students have always been and continue to be at the heart of everything I do," he said.

He said while the policy presented last night will be followed by more specific procedures following consultation with HDSB stakeholders which began last Friday (Feb. 24), over 4,000 responses to a survey for HDSB community feedback have already been received. "Your responses have been appreciated," he said. "We are listening."

Too little, too late?

For the parents who filled the public gallery at the HDSB administrative building on Guelph Line to capacity for the second consecutive meeting of the trustees, Ennis's plainly spoken words should have been welcome. They have been calling for months for the school and the board to start putting children first and address the issue.

Milton Ward 3 & 4 Trustee Naveed Ahmed pointed out, however, that goodwill may already be lost. He said he saw no clear expectations of what the board was trying to achieve in the policy and that its scope was left too open to interpretation. He also questioned the survey method of engaging with stakeholders.

"Obviously we have overwhelming evidence that the community, the stakeholders, are not supporting the survey or the professional policy draft as it is stated," he said. "Right now the community sees us as not being up to the job, as dragging our feet. Are we doing anything to address that?"

Burlington Ward 3 & 6 Trustee Xin Yi Zhang pointed out inconsistencies in the policy as written, noting some portions state the board can move on a professionalism expectations of teachers, while others reference the ongoing provincial negotiations with teachers as a reason not to act.

Oakville Ward 3 & 6 Trustee Tanya Rocha followed up on this point, asking why procedures could not be drafted now based on the existing policy and documents referenced as forming the backbone of the "new" professionalism policy.

While Taha replied there was no reason, it was unclear why this had not been pursued over the months since the issue arose in September 2022.

Rocha also tried to clarify what procedures should follow incidences under existing policies. Taha said matters are handled individually but gave no specifics of steps or actions.

Survey irregularities

Criticism of the survey methods for getting stakeholder feedback from the community was also raised by delegate Milovan Prelević, who pointed out the spectrum of answers for the survey had not been set out on a Likert scale, running from agree to disagree.

Prelević said neutral responses which should have been in the centre of the scale were instead placed to the end. 

This error was acknowledged, and the trustees heard it had been corrected after roughly 24 hours and those first responses will be evaluated as a separate file.

Delegate Lynn Petruskavich, an HDSB parent, cited existing policies on expectations of teachers to suggest that the outstanding teacher contract negotiations cited by HDSB as a "roadblock" and reason for inaction, were "unwarranted".

"Recently, however, some attempts have been made in Canada to reinterpret and redefine the term 'professionalism' — claiming it is an oppressive ideal that must be dismantled because it is 'rooted in colonial, cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacist, Eurocentric settler values'," she said.

"'This new and uncommon worldview requires robust public debate. Any attempts to redefine professionalism through this lens must be given due public consultation. The term 'professionalism' appears in hundreds of Canadian policies, guides and legal judgments where it is imbued with a positive and moral framework that fits the community’s collective notion of what it means to act professionally.

"Until such time that this public debate is facilitated, parents must be assured that HDSB administrators will be expected to uphold and enforce current norms and interpretations of our agreed-upon language."