YCDSB: the politics of chaos in Catholic Education
TORONTO – On its face, political ideology is the safest “religion” to practise, today. You can argue until you are “blue in the face, “red with anger. passion” or whatever shade of “orange denotes progressive remorse for other peoples’ failings on human rights”.
The only condition is that you put yourself forward as an advocate of democracy, transparency and accountability. You can claim to be incredibly passionate about and exclaim awesome incredulity at anything and still ignore the substance of your obligations to your constituencies.
Some trustees, Senior Staff at the York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) and teacher union activists seem to have made a science of that manipulation, thus causing great squandering of monies, sowing discord among otherwise serious colleagues and destroying the reputation of their Board and Catholic education.
As a journalistic enterprise, over the last seven years, Corriere has covered just about every issue having to do with educational programs and personalities at YCDSB. Ironically, one of the instigators of the mayhem, trustee Theresa McNicol, invited me in writing to travel to Aurora to witness firsthand what she was about to let loose, just prior to the last election.
In brief, it was a well-orchestrated exercise by some trustees (Cotton, Crowe, McNicol, Wigston) to push out colleagues of Italian extraction for their views on Catholic orthodoxy, and International Languages by alleging “intimidation”, thuggery, on their part (classic racist stereotyping). Notwithstanding, several trustee candidates of Italian background Barbieri, Di Meo, Iafrate, Saggese, with the support of Frank Alexander managed to keep sanity. It did not help that another trustee Angela Grella sided with the Mc Nicol group.
Yet, this same McNicol group over the year, aided by the most incompetent of senior staff, called in the police to every month-end Board meeting to shore up the security guards hired to protect them and teacher nutbars against “vocal parents”. I never saw them and when parents delegated, they were never threatening.
YCDSB was not initially part of the group placed under supervision, notwithstanding the legal costs inflicted on them by scurrilous advocates determined to eliminate Catholicism from the system through Court action, judge-shopping and advancing non-qualified student trustees as their cover.
According to Former Chair E. Crowe the most recent legal action launched by Mc Nicol [and her backers] cost the YCDSB circa $270,000 in legal fees to defend unsuccessfully (others claim the total is more than three times that amount). The Court valued procedure over substance. The “last” Director quit/went on leave and until very recently filled a role as special advisor while an Interim Director pretended to be in charge.
Mc Nicol, a resident of Newmarket re-offered as a trustee candidate. Why? Same question should be addressed to Grella and Wigston. Cotton and Crowe may have done everyone a favour and declined to jump back in. Alexandre and Barbieri unfortunately also did not run. Saggese decided to seek election as a city Councillor. Di Meo and Iafrate were acclaimed.
The future of the Board and Catholic education in York region rests on their shoulders.
Corriere reached out to YCDSB in preparing this commentary, but as of going to print, there was no response.