HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2002-11-06, Page 3News
THE HURON EXPOSITOR, November 21, 2001-11
Smith told to 'keep his mouth shut' about closed session
Trustee asks school board staff to determine whether Smith's letter to the editor is a breach of confidentiality
"If trustees as a group act within the body of a board, there
will be no individual liability," the minutes continue. "It is a
matter of protection for trustees to stay within its legislated
policy-making role and work as a corporate body."
Immediately after viewing the information package, which
was only distributed at the Nov. 13 meeting, Westley
requested board staff to look into whether or not the letter
constituted a breach of confidentiality, and whether or not any
action should be taken.
"Madame chair, I'll take that under advisement," responded
director of education Lorne Rachlis.
Speaking after the meeting, Smith said that, because such a
discussion doesn't fall under the Education Act's criteria for a
closed -session meeting, "I don't feel bound to hold that in
confidence.
"The legal advice that I have is that (the role of a trustee)
shouldn't have been discussed in closed session, and also that
I'm within my rights to talk about it in public for that same
reason."
Indeed, in his information package, Smith also included
two documents prepared by Seaforth lawyer Fred Leitch,
backing his claims.
With her request to the board, however, Westley said the
minutes of the closed session must remain confidential.
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't want to be in a closed -
session meeting with trustee Smith if he's going to breach that
confidentiality," she said. "Because otherwise, we are going to
fall apart as a board if we can't trust a trustee to keep his
mouth shut."
By Sten Slater
Special to The Expositor
One trustee's public airing of concerns about the affairs of
the Avon Maitland District School Board has prompted
another trustee to urge him to "keep his mouth shut" and warn
that the board could "fall apart" if such activity is allowed to
continue.
In the "new business" section of a regular meeting of the
board, Tuesday, Nov. 13, Central Huron trustee Charles Smith
distributed a package of information to both trustees and the
media.
Included were two motions to reconsider previous actions
of the board -- one to approve a list of schools for study into
possible accommodation changes, and one to publicly declare
a capacity loading target for the board's schools.
There was also a new motion to require that trustees be
provided with line -by-line expense and revenue information,
as well as analysis of the differences in provincially
standardized test results for schools with or without a
congregation of Grades 7 and 8 students.
The new motion was defeated after some discussion.
Stratford trustee Rod Brown spoke most forcefully against
the inclusion of line -by-line budget information, suggesting
such analysis would take away valuable time from both staff
and trustees.
And, Listowel representative Don Brillinger commented
that compiling accurate standardized test analysis based on
the congregation of Grades 7 and 8 students would be
difficult, since few clusters of Avon Maitland schools are
cperating fully under such a system.
The motions to reconsider, meanwhile, are expected to be
brought before trustees at the board's next regular meeting,
Nov. 27.
The portion of Smith's information package which really
caught Stratford trustee Meg Westley's eye, however, was an
as -yet -unprinted letter -to -the -editor that Smith later told
reporters he had already sent to various district media outlets.
The letter gives details of a closed -session meeting of the
board from Oct. 23, in which Smith objected to a portion of
the agenda featuring a presentation about the role of trustees.
"1 objected to the inclusion of this presentation in closed
session both before and after the lawyer (in Smith's words,
hired by the board to give the presentation) arrived, stating
that a presentation and ensuing trustee discussion does not ..
meet any of the five criteria for closed session as set out in the
Education Act," Smith's letter reads.
Smith also included (in the information package, but not as
a part of the letter -to -the -editor) a copy of the board's official
minutes from the meeting, which are not normally distributed
to the public.
The minutes confirm Smith's objections to the
presentation's inclusion under closed session, then go on to
describe the presentation, by David Williams of the London
firm Harrison, Pensa LLP.
"The board acts as the corporate body and, as trustees,
individual members do not hold any power," the minutes state
regarding Williams' presentation. "The power of a board is
derived from acting as the corporate board. The duty of the
board is to establish policy in areas of its jurisdiction, and to
delegate to administration to oversee the administration of the
school system.
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