Board cancels Tiger Tip-Off over supervision concerns
Tournament cancelled after first day of play
The Lakehead District Public School board says it cancelled a high-profile basketball tournament because of safety concerns arising from inadequate supervision.
The Tiger Tip-off tournament at Westgate Collegiate was cancelled Thursday night after the first day of the two-day event.
Board superintendent Ian MacRae said there was an expectation the tournament would have enough teacher-supervisors, but that changed after the union reinstated work-to-rule action this week.
"We were hoping all along, knowing where our negotiations were with our local employee groups, that once we reached a tentative agreement the sanctions would be lifted," he said.
"It came as quite a surprise to us that, based on the situations in York Region and Niagara, we would be looking at a provincial-wide pullout of bargaining."
‘Disappointed’
The head of the Thunder Bay branch of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation said his members contributed hundreds of hours to the tournament and a way could have been found to resolve the supervision issue.
"There are some very disappointed students and there are certainly some very disappointed coaches," Paul Caccamo said.
"My preference would have been to sit down and to talk openly about the concerns and try to look forward to a solution that would have kept the tournament running."
He said teachers did their part for the tournament.
"In discussion with my members yesterday, when they informed me that they were committed to the 300 hours to take care of the supervision responsibilities that existed with the tournament — as they have always existed for the past 35 years — I thought there were certainly enough grounds there to move forward," Caccamo added.
But MacRae said supervision of the tournament became a problem. He said "the threshold of supervision that we thought was necessary to ensure student, parent and school community safety was not there." MacRae said the decision was made in conjunction with the school principal that the second day of the tournament--which involved a significant number of visitors being present at Westgate--would not continue.
Two of the teams entered in the tournament had travelled to Thunder Bay from Sioux Lookout and Fort Frances.