Out-of-town retreats for school board brass 'will not continue' after Toronto trip

Thames Valley District School Board senior team members will no longer head out of town for retreats and will instead hold their planning sessions "closer to home" the board's CEO and director of education, Mark Fisher, said on London Morning Wednesday. 

"Traditionally, we have gone outside the city for team building," Fisher said.  "This is just something that has happened historically, it happens with most public-sector institutions and private-sector institutions. We always adapt, we always make changes, we are really forward-thinking and this is likely an activity that will not continue moving forward."

Fisher was responding to news, first published in the London Free Press on Tuesday, that 18 of the school board's senior team members attended a retreat at the Marriott City Centre Hotel in downtown Toronto Aug. 19-21.

The hotel is located inside the Rogers Centre, the stadium that is also home to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. Many of the rooms overlook the playing field and nightly room rates start at $330, according to online listings. The Jays were playing the nights the TVDSB team was there. 

London Morning host Andrew Brown asked Fisher how much the retreat cost. 

"I can't give the exact number," he said. "It was a bulk discounted rate that included meeting rooms and the accommodation for our senior leaders. This is something now, on a go-forward basis, that we will be doing differently."

News of the retreat comes less than three months after CBC News reported about a group of staff members attending a professional development day in which staffers attended a flower-arranging workshop.

It also happens as the board deals with a $7.6-million budget deficit and earlier this year floated the possibility of job cuts. 

Fisher said the retreats are valuable because they allow team members to plan ahead of the start of the busy school year. 

Craig Smith, president of the Thames Valley local of the elementary teachers' union, agrees that senior team members need to meet, but he said the board needs to also weigh the optics of such an expenditure at a time when some teachers are paying for classroom supplies. 

"If austerity and cost-cutting are central to the board's strategic plan, the senior leadership needs to be seen to be leading by example," he said. 

Bill Tucker, a now retired former director of education at the TVDSB, said annual retreats were common in the weeks before Labour Day. He said those retreats often happened out of town.

"It is not inconsistent with what happens across school boards around the province and across the country," he said. "It does give the senior team an opportunity to concentrate on the issues that we'll be facing in the coming year." 

Some school boards didn't meet out of town

CBC News asked other school boards in southwestern Ontario if they sent leadership team staff to retreat meetings ahead of the school year. 

A spokesperson with the London District Catholic School Board said this year's annual late-summer planning meeting took place in St. Catharines and involved one night in a hotel. 

Stephen Fields of the Windsor-Essex Catholic board said administrators there have held several meetings leading up to the start of the school year, but all were held at the board office. 

"We have not travelled anywhere for any of those meetings, " said Fields. 

A spokesperson for the Greater Essex County District School Board said their administrators did not take part in any out-of-office retreats. 

A Waterloo Region District School Board spokesperson said senior staff met for one day at a location in downtown Kitchener and did not incur any hotel stay.

TVDSB Chair Beth Mai responded Thursday to questions sent to her on Tuesday. In a general statement, she said the school board "takes the matter seriously" and that trustees are "dedicated to upholding the trust that the public places in us to manage resource effectively and in the best interest of our students." 

She said the board of trustees will "take neccessary steps to address the issue," including strengthening policies.