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Home My WebLink AboutHuron 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. 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