Western Manitoba school board defies provincial advisory panel, holds meeting with just 4 trustees

Four trustees of a controversy-mired western Manitoba school board met on Monday and voted to ban all but the Canadian, Manitoban and school flags, right after butting heads with a panel the province appointed to help guide them in their roles.

The Mountain View School Division board has nine seats on its board, so the four trustees present at Monday's meeting weren't enough to achieve the quorum required under the Public Schools Act — but they went ahead with a school boarding meeting anyway.

Before that meeting, five members of the school board met with an advisory panel that the provincial government appointed in June, after the school division's superintendent was fired and three trustees resigned.

The fifth trustee, whom the board needed to achieve quorum, left when the advisory panel walked out of the meeting, said Jim Murray, a member of the four-person advisory panel.

The advisory panel was appointed by the province to help the Mountain View board better understand trustee roles and governance, said Murray, a Brandon School Division trustee. Mountain View is north of Brandon, stretching from the Saskatchewan border to Dauphin Lake and Winnipegosis, with Riding Mountain and Assessippi parks along its southern border and Duck Mountain to the north. The division office is in Dauphin.

Murray said the school board tried to restricted the panel's participation in board meetings and impose its own terms of reference on them.

'We pushed back'

"Mountain View was telling us that we couldn't do our job the way that the [education] minister wanted us to do that job, which was to help them grow as trustees, heal a rift in their community and help them understand their role and get back to the business of educating children," he said.

"When we were told that we were going to be just observers in the room, we pushed back on that and said, no, that's not what we're going to do."

Murray, who's a trustee in the Brandon School Division, doesn't know what will happen next and said it's unclear if the votes conducted by the four trustees — including the decision to ban all flags other than the Canadian, Manitoban and school flags — will be rendered moot.

"The [education] minister now has to decide what he wants to do," Murray said. "It's all in the hands of the department right now."

Mountain View School Division has been mired in controversy for months.

The province ordered a governance review of the school board in April, after trustee Paul Coffey gave a board meeting presentation in which he said residential schools started as a good thing, questioned the extent of abuse at the schools and called the term "white privilege" racist.

The comments were condemned by Indigenous leaders, the provincial teachers' union and Mountain View School Division superintendent Stephen Jaddock.

Jaddock was removed from his position in June, and days later, three long-serving trustees resigned, with Leifa Misko writing in her resignation letter that "presentations, policies and decisions are being made at the table that I cannot support in good conscience."

Mountain View School Division board chair Jason Gryba said in a statement Tuesday that the province has failed to provide guidance and clarity on the advisory panel and how it can function without "jeopardizing the representation of the community."

The trustees worked with legal counsel to submit their own terms of reference for the panel, the statement from Gryba said, which included only allowing panel members to speak before or after meetings or as a delegation "without interfering in board meetings."

The board also wants to see the results of the provincial governance review, Gryba said.

"The Minister has not acknowledged these suggestions, and at a recent meeting, panel members walked out before a decision could be made, accusing the board of non-cooperation," Gryba's statement says.

"If the Minister is serious about improving governance, we need access to that document to understand the basis for the initial recommendation to dissolve the board."

Trustees have accused the province of threatening to dissolve the board if they do not comply with the advisory panel and its recommendations, although Education Minister Nello Altomare has said he doesn't want to take that step.

A spokesperson for Altomare said in a statement that the minister met with the board in June and the deputy minister attended another board meeting.

The terms of reference for the oversight panel has been "clearly outlined and communicated," the spokesperson said.

The province said a byelection to fill four trustee seats is scheduled for Oct. 30, but did not respond to questions about possible dissolution of the board or ramifications of a meeting being held without quorum.

'Get on with teaching kids'

Cam Bennet, a retired teacher who lives in the school division, said the board's focus on personal agendas and issues like parental rights is creating turmoil and detracting from student and teacher well-being.

"I don't believe the remaining trustees speak for the majority of Mountain View School Division taxpayers and residents," said Bennet, a member of the Parkland Human Rights Alliance, which was formed this year to speak on behalf of marginalized groups in Mountain View School Division.

Trustees need to focus on issues like teacher shortages, school upgrades and even getting air conditioning to create better learning environments, he said.

The flag ban shows trustees aren't working to help children, education or the community, Bennet said.

"I don't think the trustees, the current board is interested in changing their views," he said.

The community had hoped the advisory panel would stabilize the situation, but "that hope is out the window now," he said.

"The board of trustees needs to be dissolved. Bring in someone competent. Let's just sort of have a cooling-off period here and let's get on with teaching kids."