The Ontario Ombudsman's office has encouraged the Rainbow District School Board “to be vigilant in adhering to its obligations” under the Education Act “and its own policies and procedures” after a complaint by one of its trustees.
Larry Killens, a trustee who represents the Manitoulin Island area, filed the complaint last year. He recently received a eight-page response from Jean-Frederic Hobsch, counsel in the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman.
The complaint surrounds the board voting during its April 14, 2015 special in-camera meeting to remove Killens from certain in-camera discussions.
Killens complained to the Ombudsman that the trustee conduct complaint process set out in the Education Act and the school board's policy was not followed.
“Specifically, you complained that you did not receive notice of the motion, that the reasons given for the motion were unfounded and that you were not provided an opportunity to respond to the motion prior to the in-camera vote,” the report said.
“You also complained that the board of trustees had failed to ratify the in-camera vote in an open meeting of the board of trustees, contrary to the Act and in the school board's policy.”
Killens said there's nothing to rejoice about with the Ombudsman's report, as he wishes the incident had never occurred.
“Because of the year and two months constant pressure and treatment from the board wanting me to drop this issue and let it go away, I began to doubt myself,” he said.
“But now this is what I do feel good about — it actually confirms what my complaints were, and they were justified. Not one of my complaints I listed were not dealt with. Make special note they didn't suggest where I went wrong.”
Rainbow board chair Doreen Dewar said she's “very pleased” with how the Ombudsman's office handled the situation. She said the office did a review, but decided not to launch a formal investigation.
“It is good that we have the Ombudsman's office to look at these things,” she said.
“But what I would really like to see is to put this behind us and let's focus on some very important educational decisions that are going to have to be done in the future. I welcome the opportunity to do that.”
In the report provided to Killens, the Ombudsman's office said it found that the formal procedure set out in the school board's code of conduct to address trustee conduct issues “was not followed in this case.”
It also said that the board chair — Dewar — committed to proposing a number of amendments to the trustee code of conduct.
“They were very impressed with our procedures and with our policies,” Dewar said.
“However, because of the circumstance, there was a little bit of tweaking needed in order to be able to handle the kind of circumstance that we were facing at that particular moment.”
The report also talks about how, “in an effort to restore procedural fairness in the circumstances,” Killens was given the opportunity to speak in camera to the April 14, 2015 motion in question at the July 5, 2016 meeting.
The motion was then voted on in the July 5 open meeting by the board of trustees. However, by that time, no member of the public was there, due to the premature adjournment of the meeting.
Dewar — who acknowledges she made an error — said what happened is the board started out July 5 by meeting in camera, and then paused for the public meeting, where several awards were presented.
After that portion of the meeting, she mistakenly called for adjournment, when she should have called for a recess.
That's because the board planned on more in-camera discussions, followed by a resumption of the public meeting, where the vote on the motion involving Killens would take place.
Dewar said she took steps to reverse the adjournment, and she sent someone out to see if members of the public were still there, and to explain the situation.
“I did my best to correct it,” she said. “I admitted it immediately to the Ombudsman's office. I told them about it so they would know this happened. It was an error based on timing.”
