Outgoing Ottawa public school trustee Donna Dickson said she and her colleagues have spent the past year languishing “in limbo.”
They don’t currently have any pay, any powers or any official responsibilities — and Dickson sees no clear sign that will end anytime soon.
Lyra Evans, who like Dickson is also leaving a school board trustee position to seek a council seat, said it sounds like a bad deal.
“Who is going to put themselves out, be subject to public scrutiny, for no ability to make meaningful change and lose money?” she said.
“You give up two nights a week with your kids. It was already a tough ask. It is getting far tougher.”
But people are still putting themselves out there. There are currently 19 candidates running for a seat on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), with at least one name registered to run in each of the 12 zones.
Brendan Ray is so far the only candidate running in Zone 11, made up of the city’s central River and Gloucester-Southgate wards.
He said he has worked in education since 2003, including as a university administrator. In his view, Ontario is in its most serious situation for public schools in more than a century.
He mentioned student safety and transportation, but also recent provincial encroachments on elected boards. He said the community needs a board with a strong voice.
“This is something that I’ve been frustrated with as a parent,” he said. “So I’ve decided that, OK, if not me, then who?”
Brendan Ray is so far the only registered candidate in Zone 11, which includes River and Gloucester-Southgate wards. (Arthur White-Crummey/CBC)
OCDSB and other Ontario board trustees have spent the past year sidelined after Education Minister Paul Calandra put them under supervision, with a provincial appointee making all the decisions that would otherwise fall to trustees.
Calandra has said that will last “for as long as it takes to put them back on track.”
Natasha Mott is one of three candidates running in Zone 5, which includes much of old Nepean. She said she understands why CBC News would come asking why she wants the job.
“I am ever the optimist,” she answered.
“I really believe that we will get back to a place where trustees will have a voice again and I just want to be set up to do that.”
Even if it takes a while, she hopes supervisor Bob Plamondon will be willing to sit down with whoever wins a mandate to represent their community.
Diminished powers not a deterrent
Zone 5 candidate Suzanne Lyon is a retired federal public servant who previously served on a parent council. She said it got her “hooked,” though she longed for a decision-making role and a place on a school board.
“Nobody really knows what the new board is going to look like, but whatever it is that comes, I want to be a part of that,” she said.
She said it would be disappointing to wait months or years to take a seat at the table, but she said there’s plenty she could do in the meantime.
“Parents and families need a voice and my door will always be open,” she said.
“I had experiences as a parent of a child in the OCDSB where I needed to talk to my trustee, and I want to be that person for people in Zone 5. I know how important that is. There are so many issues and challenges that families have.”
Even if supervision ends, the government is making major changes that will diminish the role of trustees. It’s stripping them of much of their role in budgeting and taking away their power to fire the school district CEO.
But Lara Bremner, a retired diplomat and the third candidate for Zone 5, said the position still has influence. The oversight role won’t be gone, and trustees will still be able to set the strategic priorities of the board.
“Even if it’s changed, it’s reduced and it’s adjusted, it’s still an important role,” she said. “It’s vital, in fact, to be the conduit between families and schools, and bringing that voice and those perspectives to the board table.”
Bremner said she doesn’t object to the recent provincial changes to the role of trustees, which she calls “reasonable.” She said parents want good governance, not the kinds of “ideological debates” that sometimes bogged down the current board.
Besides trimming their powers, the province is also shaving $6,000 off the already meagre honorarium trustees receive, cutting it down to $10,000 a year.
The pay is so bad that trustees might have a tough time making back the money they spend on their campaigns, according to Evans, if supervision continues far into the term and deprives them of a few years of paycheques.
Ray expects that he will be out money after the campaign, whether he wins or not. But he said the role isn’t about the honorarium.
For her part, Mott said she probably lost money during her time serving on family school councils, so earning a pittance in the trustee role would be nothing new.
Natasha Mott is running in Zone 5, which has three candidates seeking a seat that represents much of old Nepean. (Francis Ferland/CBC)
Brenda Abramson, who is running to represent Barrhaven in Zone 3, feels much the same way.
“If you believe in something, it’s not about money,” she said.
If candidates don’t run, she fears it would embolden the province to keep control of the board.
“If nobody steps forward, then there’s no possibility of transferring it back,” she said.
For at least one candidate, the campaign seems as important as the office. Wealth manager Shannon Boschy ran against Evans in the last election, losing by a wide margin.
Evans was the first transgender trustee in OCDSB history, while Boschy campaigned against what he calls “gender ideology.”
This time, Boschy said he’s running to roll back board policies on diversity, equity and inclusion that he called “woke,” “activist” and tinged with “radical identity politics.”
He’s running in Zone 10, which includes downtown Ottawa. Asked why he again chose one of Ottawa’s most left-leaning wards on a platform that seems anything but, he signalled that actually getting the job isn’t really his top concern.
“I want to drive a discussion,” he said. “I think the discussion is far more important in the public sphere than whether or not I get elected.”
Many of the candidates said that, regardless of what the role looks like, trustees can still play a role raising their voices and lobbying to represent the families who elected them.
“It’s important for the board to say, ‘We are an elected board; we represent this community,’ and to use that as a platform to advocate on behalf of residents, which is what the job is anyway,” said Ray.
The deadline to register as a candidate for trustee, city councillor or mayor is Aug. 21. Ontario’s municipal elections are Oct. 26.