School board meets to avoid dissolution

The board of P.E.I.'s Eastern School District met for the first time in months Monday, whipping through a long agenda under the threat of firing by the minister of education.

The agenda included 17 new policies and regulations, a shopping list of items Education Minister Doug Currie said he wanted taken care of by mid-February. Currie gave himself the power to dismiss the board in new legislation in December if it did not deal with certain outstanding business.

The board dispensed with that business in just 25 minutes. In anticipation of public interest coming out of last year's controversy hundreds of chairs were laid out, but only a handful of people attended.

One of the trustees more given to public debate, Edna Reid, was absent. That left Gael MacEachern the only trustee with anything to say, but she complained she didn't get many opportunities.

"So just to clarify, Mr Chair, you are not permitting me the opportunity to voice my concerns regarding some of these policies," she said at one point.

Chair Bob Clow responded he was just follow standard practices.

When she did get a chance to speak, MacEachern called the board's re-affirmation of its code of ethics - one of the items ordered by the minister - little more than a gesture.

"The board has not had the opportunity to properly and diligently review its code of ethics," she said.

This was only the third public meeting for the board since the school year began, and it did not include two issues very much on the public mind. There was no mention of how mould forced the closure of two schools in the district, disrupting the education of about 600 students, and how air quality testing is continuing in other schools.

There was also no mention of rezoning, an issue that has been before the board since 2009. This year it received 55 requests to change school boundaries.

Clow said the board did what the minister asked.

"We've come a long way in the last little while. I hope this is a sign that we're able to get over that little hump we had," he said.

The board was called dysfunctional in the fall, drawing complaints from the P.E.I. Home and School Association, school principals, and seven senior staff at the district, who wrote to Currie in November calling for its dismissal.

"Minister Currie, we respectfully ask that you shut down all meetings, especially the next public board meeting, involving trustees of the Eastern School District," the letter from senior staff read.

"We ask that you change the legislation or do whatever it takes to disband this board and immediately create an informed, competency-based board, similar to our new Health Board. The students and staff of the Eastern School District deserve this so we can continue to move education forward."

Currie went ahead and drew up the legislation, then gave trustees until Feb. 15 to get their act together. They will now have to wait to see whether this will be enough to appease the minister. There are no further meetings scheduled before his Feb. 15 deadline.