Carey De Pass

Trustees, the Board, and the Province

Fight provincially mandated, local education democracy destroying, one-person rule at the Toronto Public and Catholic School Boards! Resist, fight, advocate and yell that we want our democracy back! Top down, bully boy style of government is becoming the norm in North America. This must stop. Once the local electorate are respected then we can listen, consult and work out agreements on class sizes, fixing our schools, implement policies to reduce bullying and enhance special programs. My strength is that I listen and consult with voters.

Bullying in Schools

The TDSD has studied the policy and have implemented protocols and regulations. TDSB staff are given training. The TDSB has a dedicated webpage to bullying which includes an online student portal for students to report incidents of bullying and a parent protocol as to who to report it to: 1/ Staff 2/ Principal and 3/School Superintendent. I think there should be a fourth option. A last step could be to to report an event be an elected trustee. Surely trustees can review such incidents with a school superintendent if all other routes fail.

Class Sizes and Staffing

Rohit Gupta, the Doug Ford appointed, TDSB supervisor was a corporate management consultant. He struck down the 32 student cap in an effort to "streamline and standardize". I have experience teaching a grade 8 class of 40 plus students in an economically developing country. I was a math teacher. Class management, class learning, attention that the educator can give to the student, all suffer when classes go much above 25 students. Local, democratically elected trustees who are answerable to local voters would never let this happen!

Special Programs and Program Access

These programs and special schools are something that I notice that is very Toronto focused. I have lived in Halton, Hamilton and Peel Board regions and special programs like this are rare. Students in Hamilton, Halton and Peel still thrived and were functioning members of society without such frills. While I consider myself a progressive, I also feel as an elected official, one has to be careful when spending other people's money (taxpayers money). If the budget is tight and the results are lagging in core areas, focus money on the core.