Diary of a Mad Trustee March 3rd 2010 Open Board Meeting
Our Trustee Eden
Principiis Obsta…Finem Respice
Resist the Beginning…Consider the End
“More than at any other time in history, humanity faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose wisely.”
This has always been one of my favourite Woody Allen quotes. It sums up the way I often experience life both at and away from the board table. We may scrape together the sense to do what is right in the circumstances but our options get more and more unappetizing.
Tonight the board admitted it was wrong – not actually or in so many words – no one aired any regret but they did reverse a earlier urgently held position it was not mandatory to bring a motion from the Finance Committee to the board for approval. I mentioned in my last report the budget model (well the skeletal framework of a whisper of a rumour of a budget model) the Finance Committee instructed senior staff to follow when building the 2010/2011budget.This recommendation was kept off the board table through two board meetings on the curious insistence it was not necessary.
At the March 3rd meeting, it made an appearance – dropped at the last minute on the agenda like a dawn raid and quickly dispatched. So we did get to briefly( with little enthusiasm for discourse from the ‘bare bones’ advocates) discuss the wisdom of building a budget with an optional or total cuts column – the declared intention is to avoid percentage cuts to all programs and services. Any way you look at it -this fails to meet the test of providing quality learning and working conditions however, as the secretary treasurer originally stated it will give trustees a rationale for passing a budget with dramatic cuts. We can proudly say we will be supplying the legally mandated minimum service to the community while targeting entire programs and services.
Again – there is no consensus – a hollow victory for the slim majority who continue to be willing to oversee daily violations of the BC School Act rather than submit a budget which may exceed estimated revenue as section 111 of that Act commands. It should occur to us this emblematic dictat is actually in bad faith since any reasonable person would expect that if the School Act says estimated expenditure must not exceed estimated revenue, the revenue should meet the needs so we can abide by the clause and still do our duty by our kids.
To say we as a board are hopelessly polarized does not overstate the matter but from a community stand point there is every reason to persist in advising all trustees to submit a budget which will support our schools. It is never too late to have the decisions at the table match the distraught rhetoric and handwringing. Either you believe justice is not being served by our ministry or you do and are prepared stand by your convictions. There is no middle ground however convenient it might be if there was.
We had an amended version of the school calendar placed before us – meant to replace the grand old School Calendar Bylaw #4 which actually demands approval from staff and parents for changes to instruction time. To call this an amendment would be inaccurate – it is a full blown replacement with entirely different intentions and process (or lack thereof). The new not so improved version was entirely disinterested in the requirements of the school community.
Though the use of this bylaw in the past was more or less driven by relatively harmless modifications to various school schedules for the purposes of accommodating conferences for staff or other temporary matters it now has to defend the manner in which we deliver education to the kids – it speaks much more seriously to the downward spiral of productive teaching time and the sliding income of our employees.
The under resourcing of our schools has now resulted in some districts using the days of instruction like an ATM – drop a week, add a couple of minutes a day –and no one is the wiser. And I mean no one – any educator worth the name will tell you little fiddly bits of instruction time in the real school world of distracted kids, endless sub atomic duties, curriculum and testing pressures are not worth a toss. When we lose a week it is gone in all the ways which matter.
There was a determined attempt to proceed through a 1st reading of the bylaw as massively amended but damned if 1st reading did not pass (apparently an unprecedented occurrence matched only by getting a 30 minute audience with the Minister of Education). So the Sec/Treas. has returned to the task with direction from the board to bring something containing at least a hat tip to the parents and employees – but approval has been downgraded to consultation and generally this translates into – We have suffered through the clumsy process of asking your opinion and we can now get on with the crucial task of disregarding your views. But it is best to hang on to the minimum niceties until we can redress the approach in favour of genuine participation in the decision.
Finally – the material concerning the March 30th meeting recommended to the board by the District Funding Sub Committee was considered again and handed a resounding whack up the side of the head. Though the rejection of the program and indeed the entire concept was delivered with rather too much zeal no one seemed to have any genuine or meaningful arguments against staging the meeting as decided as long ago as November 2009.Back then the board agreed to endorse the recommendation of the District Funding Sub Committee and hold a meeting or indeed meetings if necessary to:
Inform the public about the School Districts budget challenges
Seek support from the public for action to put pressure on the Provincial Government to increase funding for public education; and
Ask for input from the public on additional ways to put pressure on the Provincial Government to increase funding for public education
In every way we could manage, the subcommittee thoughtfully designed an event to meet these objectives but in the end the board walked away despite having passed a further motion in January to support the specific details of this meeting. I suppose they had always assumed we were joking or might just forget we brought the suggestion but it turned out we were deadly serious and our memories are fairly intact.
Still the important thing is the show goes on – two groups of parents have taken up the role as hosts and except for a change of venue, different personnel providing the budget info and chairing of the meeting, it is alive and well. No one who had agreed to participate in the meeting originally withdrew – I suppose they felt the message and the method have merit regardless of the sponsors. And so do I. I hate to see hard work and conscientious effort wasted – and because of the Koksilah Parent Community and Friends of Cowichan Kids it won’t be.
So join them on March 30th, 7 pm at the Mesachie Room in the Cowichan Community Centre (yes I know it is now the Island Savings Centre but in a private bit of protest I refuse to refer to our public space by that damn silly name just because they ponied up a few shekels which pale compared to the vast sums we the people pay to sustain the place). I am attaching the leaflet – consider it a warm and welcoming invitation to a promising event – ‘Defending the Public Education our Children Deserve’.
I suppose we should all feel a bit hurt the board did not like the program placed before them – but as far as I can tell- no one is grieving. Too busy getting on with it and glad to be a merry band of austerity refuseniks anxious to affirm the potential of our public schools and oppose the crime of whittling away their promise. We need a cunning plan – and we may know where to look for it.
In honour of the passing of a truly great man I close with a quote from him – Howard Zinn. Not among us any longer but through his words.
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Your Trustee pal
Eden
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