The Executive Director Eva Whitmore, the Second Vice President Denise Pike and I attended some of the sessions of the 29th AGM of the NLSBA.

Included in the package at the NLFSC office are:

• NLSBA Summary of Services and Program
• AGM Agenda / Programme
• AGM Business Meeting package (minutes, resolutions, constitution, budget, reports)
• Miscellaneous leaflets

Minister of Education

The Minister of Education addressed the opening session.

She stated that she has just attended a forum on youth violence. There are challenges beyond what educational delivery in the classroom alone can solve. The Minister stated that this province now has the best pupil-teacher ratio (and the highest proportion of GDP spent on education) of any province in Canada. The Government has spent $125M on school construction and has committed another $12M over three years for maintenance (mostly roof and window repairs and air quality improvements). The freeze in grant reductions to school boards has been extended for another year.

The Province continues to seek the restoration of federal transfer payments to the level they were at before the cuts of the 1990’s began. Until that happens, the Government will be unable to spend more than the current $700M per year on the education of less than 100,000 students.

The Minister noted that the NLTA’s official response to the Report of the Ministerial Panel on the Delivery of Education in the Classroom supported approximately two-thirds of the Panel’s recommendations. She highlighted some of the recommendations that the Government will implement immediately such as the return of public exams. The Minister also noted the immediate creation of an Implementation Team that will include representation from the NLFSC, the NLTA, the NLSBA and the Government. It will examine all of the recommendations of the Panel.

The President of the Canadian School Boards Association

In her address as President of the Canadian School Boards Association, Kathy LeGrow, (who is also Chair of the Avalon East School Board), noted that Nova Scotia is just beginning to experience the cuts in education that we have suffered for a decade. They will suffer a cut of $11M this year alone. The threat of the abolition of locally elected school boards remains in various provinces. However, locally elected school boards may soon return to New Brunswick.

The main projects of the CSBA this year have been in the fields of youth justice and child poverty.

Kathy also noted that no less than five of the sixteen national Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching this year have gone to teachers in this province.

Workshops

Accountability Framework

Bill Lee (Associate Director of Labour Relations, NLSBA) and Wade Sheppard (Director of Accountability, Treasury Board) presented an overview of the accountability framework.

In 1997 Government started a process for making all Cabinet departments account for the public money that they spend. This project was extended to the more than 150 public bodies (including school boards and Memorial University) that spend public money. At present, half of all government expenditure is controlled by public bodies that have no requirement to account to Government for their spending.

Accountability is defined as a combination of ownership of conferred responsibility, together with an obligation to report on how those responsibilities have been discharged and to report on the results.

In June two government handbooks for public bodies' accountability are likely to receive official approval. The handbooks will contain an accountability process that each school board must follow. Bill Lee will familiarize all school boards (staff and trustees) with the process and will obtain information from each school board on its longer term plans (3-5 years).

A handbook to govern relationships within school boards will be developed only after a collaborative process involving the Department of Education, the NLSBA and individual boards.

An accountability process will involve more work, both by school boards and by the Department of Education, but if implemented properly, it will lead to a better sense of direction, better communication, an improved understanding of roles and responsibilities, and improved decision making.

School boards will submit a budget and a three-year strategic plan for approval by the Department. Monitoring and reporting will be accomplished by quarterly and annual financial statements (as now) and also by an annual performance review (which is new and to which the Department must respond).

The Role of the Trustee

The role of the school board member has changed substantially since 1990. There are few other unpaid volunteer positions that require as much as the position of a school board member. Despite the expectations of the electorate, a school board member is elected to represent the entire district, not just the interests of the zone that elected the trustee. One trustee can, however, educate all other trustees about his/her zone.

All members of a school board must be made to feel that they are contributing to the success of the board. Each board member must have a task to do. The Chair has a unique responsibility to bring all members of the board together, (something which is clearly not happening in Avalon East). The Chair should interact closely, on behalf of all other board members, with the Director. The Chair should consult closely with the Vice Chair on all actions of the Chair.

Members of board staff need to be confident that trustees will behave properly, because staff cannot defend themselves in public. (Again, this has failed in Avalon East).

The issue of the proper role of school councils and their relationship to elected school boards was raised near the end of the session. The Stephenville district school board does maintain a spot for school council presentations in the agenda of its regular meetings. A good relationship between each trustee and the schools for which that trustee is the official board-school liaison person can improve board-council communications.

Mid Term Report Card on School Reform

In this plenary session five individuals made separate presentations on their perceptions of the accomplishments of school reform so far.

A School Board Member:

Tom Lambert, a trustee from the Burin school board, concentrated on the school closure part of school reform. His school board delayed closure decisions until the newly elected trustees had become familiarized with the whole district. Four out of 21 schools were closed, amidst much publicity and controversy. A school board must be very careful to follow its school closure policy to the letter, in order to avoid successful legal challenges. The unity of the school board around its decisions is also vital.

A School Principal:

Derrick Moore is the principal of Booth Memorial High School and the President of the School Administrators Council for District 10. School principals are the individuals dealing with the impact of school reform and most directly responsible for delivering the intended results. On the intent of school reform, starting with the Royal Commission of 1992, school reform gets an A+.

On implementation, the benefits of school reform include

• more equal programming;
• better professional development;
• healthy integration of formerly separate school staffs;
• much more sharing of ideas;
• more positive attitudes;
• neighbourhood schools;
• more efficient bussing;
• improvements in on-site management skills;
• better grade configurations leading to improved delivery of programmes;
• more even application of standards;
• inclusion of parent advocates on school councils.

However, many concerns remain:

• savings have not been fully re-invested to positive effect;
• schools have inadequate human and financial resources;
• parents are more confrontational and demanding, because political promises have not been kept;
• school administrators have more duties than ever before: the list is 15 pages long!
• the downloading of responsibilities is deterring many of the best candidates from seeking teaching and administrative positions;
• board staff are less accessible because there are too few of them;
• child protection cases have increased much faster than appropriate resources;
• special needs have increased much faster than appropriate resources;
• morale in the teaching profession is very low;
• government is not funding maintenance adequately;
• a flood of government initiatives has not been supplied with the necessary technical support.
• seed money from the federal government to start several initiatives, especially cooperative education, has not been followed up by on-going provincial support.

On implementation, school reform gets a grade of C: needs improvement.

School personnel need a break from the torrent of new initiatives.

Adequate resources for infrastructure are needed urgently.

Principals are becoming plant managers more than instructional leaders.

A School Board Director:

Domino Wilkins is the Director of School District #5. He concentrated on product and process of school reform as it affects school closures and personnel. Of 432 schools open in January 1997 across the province, 89 were closed in less than three years. Of these, only seven decisions were the subject of challenges in the courts. During the past three years, the number of students has fallen by 12,248 (from 106,205 to 93,957) and the number of teachers by 729 (from 7101 to 6372).

Benefits of school closures and reconfigurations for students include

• better course offerings;
• better provision for special needs;
• better provision of guidance teachers;
• reduced total operating costs;
• allocation of music, art, guidance, etc.

But redundancies and inappropriate re-assignments have demoralized the teaching profession in the late 1990’s. A lack of professional development exacerbated the morale problem.

The school closures part of school reform gets a grade of A for product and A- for process.

The personnel part of school reform gets a grade of B for product and A for process.

A Student:

Karen Moores is a level III student at Holy Heart of Mary High School, St. John’s.

She noted that the largest student protests at Confederation building were due in large part to misinformation from politicians.

A disadvantage of reform from her perspective is the loss of additional support for maintenance from denominational sources, leading to lack of renewal of resources and materials.

The school climate is much healthier now for the removal of religious barriers between groups of students. Karen cited the issue of birth control, (in particular the provision of condom vending machines in schools as a cheaper alternative to day care), as a benefit of reform.

A Parent Representative on a School Council:

Denise Pike is the Second Vice President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of School Councils.

For focussing the province’s attention on education, Denise gives school reform a grade of B+.

However, school reform has yet to have a positive impact on improving literacy levels. More resources are vital at the classroom level (not just at the district coordinator level). There is a desperate need for remedial reading teachers. For its effects on literacy so far, school reform gets a grade of F: failing to meet any of the objectives.

Business Sessions of the NLSBA AGM

I was present for the debate on the first two motions only.

A motion to change the NLSBA Constitution to prohibit voting by proxy was approved.

[The Federation’s Constitution, Article VII(2), allowed voting by proxy for the first time in 1999.]

A motion to change the NLSBA Constitution to change voting for NLSBA officers from direct election at the AGM to election by and from the 11 other members of its Board of Directors was defeated.

Our Executive Director has some details of the other resolutions that were approved in the business session of the NLSBA AGM. Two such resolutions mention school councils explicitly.