School board may be one step closer to issuing sanctions against trustees
The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board may be one small step closer to issuing sanctions against four trustees implicated in a probe that found poor treatment of a former student trustee, including evidence of racism.
At a special board meeting Tuesday evening, the bulk of which took place behind closed doors, trustees voted on a motion to adopt an alternative process to further explore potential code of conduct breaches" that were exposed in a third-party report.
What the alternative process" is remains unclear.
Trustees present at the meeting when the vote passed unanimously did not include any of the four trustees at the centre of the probe. Those trustees include Kathy Archer, Becky Buck, Carole Paikin Miller and Alex Johnstone. However, all trustees - with the exception of Paul Tut, who was absent, and student trustees - were present at the beginning of meeting before it went into closed session for two hours.
No trustees declared a conflict of interest. It's unclear how much of the in-camera discussion the four participated in or were present for.
Trustee Dawn Danko, the board's chair, confirmed in an emailed statement that nothing further would be shared at this stage.
The motion, while vague, could take trustees one step closer to issuing sanctions if trustees do determine the code of conduct was breached. To date, there has been no formal finding of a code of conduct violation, despite a report from a third-party investigator finding potential breaches" of the code.
Complaints about racism during her time on the school board from former student trustee Ahona Mehdi prompted the board to launch the investigation last summer.
Mehdi was at the end of her term when she made the allegations.
According to the province's Education Act, trustees - presumably, ones currently in office - must take the lead on initiating inquiries into a code of conduct violation.
If the board determines that a member has breached the code of conduct based on the inquiries, then they may impose a sanction," the Education Act reads.
While the board called the investigation a student trustee complaint of the breaches of the code of conduct" in a motion passed last week, the board clarified the investigation was not a formal code of conduct investigation, but rather an investigation into alleged breaches of the code of conduct."
Questions are being raised about the board's handling of the complaints, including why a third-party investigation was required.
Former chair of the board Todd White told Ancaster News that he believes the complaints against Kathy Archer, Becky Buck, Alex Johnstone and Carole Paikin Miller have been mishandled from Day 1" because their investigation didn't follow the board's code of conduct process.
By handing the investigation to a third-party law firm, the board left out key code of conduct steps that are necessary for any action to be taken, White said.
Meanwhile, Mehdi and the coalition of advocates for students to which she belongs - Hamilton Students for Justice - are holding firm on demands trustees resign or be removed from their roles. It's not clear if there exist any mechanisms by which trustees could be forced from office, however.
We're not going to stop until it happens," Mehdi said at a virtual public gathering of Hamilton Students for Justice members.
Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com