Rainbow School Board code of conduct changes defeated

A motion that would have given the Rainbow School Board chair the power to remove trustees from meetings was defeated last night.

The motion proposed that any trusteecould be shut out of confidential,in-camera meetings if "due to past actions, a breach of confidentiality by a trustee appears likely to occur."

Currently, trustees must sign a confidentiality agreement before attending in-camera meetings. Only one member, Manitoulin trustee Larry Killens, has not signed.

And after being excluded from previous in-camera meetings, Killens complained numerous times to Ontario's Ombudsman about the board's lack of transparency.

"We have...prevented public recording or photographing of board meetings prohibited, unlike other boards that are live streaming," Killens said. "We've made a motion that trustees are not allowed to take notes during in camera meetings. We're passing motions by number only and the public is deprived of any information."

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Rainbow School Board chair Doreen Dewar said the proposed changes to the code of conduct were recommended by the Ontario Ombudsman, and stemmed from Killens' unwillingness to sign the confidentiality agreement.

"It is absolutely essential however that when you do have an in camera meeting the confidentiality of the in camera meeting has to be maintained," Dewar said. "Trustee Killens has not always done that."

Most in camera topics include labour relations, negotiations, information about sale of board property and trustee personal information, Dewar said.

Trustees are currently bound by a code of ethics, which isn't always enforceable, Dewar said.

"We all know,that codes of conducts can be mandated but we can't mandate ethics."

"As far as I'm concerned a code of conduct is absolutely useless because there's no teeth there. There's nothing to force a trustee to follow the code of conduct," she said.

Trustee Judy Hunda said the back-and-forth between Dewar and Killens is distracting the board from their duties.

"Honestly I'm tired, I want to work for kids," Hunda said. "Nobody will say 'Hey, I made a mistake'. Hell, I make lots of them and I'll be the first one to admit it. But one of them isn't putting this stuff before kids."

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