Waterloo Region District School Board trustees call for public meetings on direction of the board

With the sudden departure of its director of education, many are wondering what's next for the Waterloo Region District School Board. Krista Simpson reports.

Two Waterloo Region District School Board trustees are calling for public meetings into the future direction of the board.

Trustees Carla Johnson and Cindy Watson each presented a notice of motion during a school board meeting on Monday night.

Johnson’s motion notes that the last community consultation on the board’s strategic plan was in March 2022, and it is due to be reviewed every three to five years. The motion also states they have received informal feedback on the board’s strategic direction from staff and the community.

Johnson is proposing a widespread public consultation process utilizing various methods of communication to gather input on “whether our strategic direction should be revised.”

The motion proposed town hall meetings, virtual meetings and asynchronous methods, and consultations with community members, students and their families and caregivers, school and education centre staff, and community organizations that work with the WRDSB.

Johnson would like to see the process start in spring 2025.

Watson’s motion, which she notes is similar, also calls for a public meeting.

In her reasons, Watson says, “parents and guardians, staff and community members have legitimate and serious concerns about the fundamental goals and strategies of the WRDSB school board’s learning agenda.”

Watson notes that these two-way conversations cannot take place at board meetings, and is asking for a town hall meeting “to gather input and answer questions and concerns of students, parents, guardians, staff and community members that would help re-calibrate the board goals.”

Watson is asking the meeting be scheduled before the end of March 2025.

The two motions will be debated by trustees at a future board meeting.

The calls come just weeks after the board’s Director of Education, jeewan chanicka, suddenly left his role.

No explanation has been provided for chanicka’s departure.

Under chanicka’s leadership, the board faced questions about its focus on equity as well as a lack of communication and transparency around decision-making.

Enrolment trends

At Monday night’s meeting, trustees also discussed a motion previously put forward by Watson, asking for a staff report on enrolment trends for the last ten years.

In recent years, enrolment at the school board has not been meeting expectations, which means the board has been receiving less provincial funding than anticipated.

Ahead of the meeting, Watson told CTV news that in her personal opinion, the board’s recent direction was playing a role in families choosing other schooling options.

“We heard a lot of complaints,” she said. “[Parents] didn’t like the identity politics or ideologies of the school board.”

At the meeting, Watson said it’s important to look at the data, regardless of each trustee’s individual opinion on what could be behind the lower than projected enrolment.

“I want to see the numbers. I want to see the information so that we can chart a path forward.”

While that motion passed, trustees did not end up supporting Watson’s call to explore a voluntary process to gather information on the reasons why parents or caregivers choose to remove a child from a WRDSB school.

Editor’s note: chanicka intentionally does not capitalize his name