by Sharon Lem and Don Peat, Toronto Sun

Reading, writing and rolling in dough?

Trustees for the cash-strapped Toronto District School Board are opening the taxpayer-funded wallet to create four new senior positions and giving their education director $1.7 million to build his “Vision of Hope.”

A memo that went to staff Tuesday announced the creation of the four new leadership positions - deputy director of operations, deputy director of academics, chief technology officer and chief facilities officer.

Advertisements for the jobs are expected to run in national newspapers this week.

The memo also announced three senior staffers were getting new titles. According to the Ministry of Finance’s salary disclosure list, the three staffers made a combined total of more than $450,000 last year before the shuffle.

TDSB spokesman Kelly Baker said the four new positions are more of a realignment of the board’s senior management.

“They’re not technically new positions,” Baker said.

She said the salaries for the positions have not been set but will come out of the existing staffing budget.

At Wednesday night’s board meeting, trustees approved six-figure funding for Education Director Chris Spence’s vision that includes a one-day teachers’ conference at the Air Canada Centre for $345,000 — $195,000 of that for delegates’ commemorative booklets.

“That’s insane!” Trustee Josh Matlow said Thursday. “The TDSB has told parents they’re going to have to close schools and cut support staff and shut down youth-at-risk programs because they don’t have enough money.

“To turn around and go on a drunken spending binge is shameful.”

Spence unveiled the “Vision of Hope” last year.

It’s a three-year-plan for the TDSB that focuses on student achievement, parent and community engagement and financial stability. It includes the creation of an all-boys school, a parent academy and hiring a marketing director to push up enrolment.

Don Valley East Trustee Michael Coteau said he supported giving Spence the cash for his vision, although he didn’t necessarily agree with every single piece or strategy of it.

“I have confidence in the director of education,” Coteau said. “He has been hired to do a job and I support him.”

But Coteau said Spence’s costly strategy ultimately will be measured to ensure the board gets its money’s worth.

“He is the one who is going to be accountable,” he said.

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by Louise Brown, The Toronto Star

The Toronto District School Board has earmarked $345,000 for a one-day teacher conference this fall at the Air Canada Centre, aimed at "jump-starting change in our schools," said chair Bruce Davis.

The controversial event passed as part of a sweeping $1.7 million package of initiatives from director of education Chris Spence, and would provide an "amazing way to move the agenda of change forward," said Davis during a lengthy heated debate Wednesday night.

The professional development event slated for Sept. 1 would bring together all the board's teachers for the first time in nearly a decade to hear speakers from around the world on how to make schools more effective. The biggest chunk of the cost is a hefty $195,000 to print a binder with speeches and resources for each delegate.

However, trustees stopped short of approving Spence's choice of U.S.-based event organizer Solution Tree, until they can pinpoint whether its fees would exceed the $50,000 mark above which bids from other firms must be entertained.

Trustee Josh Matlow slammed the idea of spending so much money on any conference "when we're facing a $17 million deficit," while trustee Sheila Ward called it a pricey "feel-good day." Trustee John Hastings opposed hiring an American consultant, given the United States' new "buy-American" policy.

However, trustee Howard Goodman described the idea as having "the potential to be a spectacular idea that generates a single message and ensures everyone of our staff is aligned in the same direction."

One way to trim costs, suggested trustee Michael Coteau, might be to put the speeches on a digital stick, rather than costly binders.

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By Sharon Lem, Toronto Sun

Toronto elementary teachers say they’re overworked, bogged down by administrative matters and unrealistic curriculum requirements, which hinder their ability to teach.

A 44-page report released by the Elementary Teachers of Toronto interviewed 81 elementary school teachers — which wasn’t intended to produce a shopping list of complaints — offers an inside look from the viewpoint of a teacher all in the name of creating a positive learning environment for students.

by Don Peat, Toronto Sun

Toronto District School Board trustee Josh Matlow is trying to get his colleagues to approve a policy about funding trustees’ legal bills.

Matlow — who is running for a city council seat in the 2010 municipal election — said the move is needed now before trustees get themselves into the heaps of trouble Toronto city council now finds itself in.

“Let’s have a policy framework in place before we start making ad hoc decisions,” Matlow said Friday.

The Toronto Party, which wants political parties allowed at the municipal level, launched a lawsuit on Christmas Eve and is suing 23 city councillors who they say broke the law by reimbursing legal expenses two colleagues, Adrian Heaps and Giorgio Mammoliti, incurred as candidates, not councillors, in the last municipal election.

City council will have the chance to consider a motion on Tuesday to reconsider the payout.

Matlow and fellow trustee Chris Tonks want trustees to approve giving board legal staff the green light to write up a policy to govern when the board will cover legal expenses for candidates and when it won’t.

“If there is a clear policy that prohibits paying legal expenses for a trustee, who for example, has either settled or lost a libel suit, and it’s clear in writing, then it can’t happen at the TDSB,” Matlow said.

The two trustees want staff to include advice on how to prohibit covering legal costs incurred by an elected candidate that has been sued for libel or slander and settled or lost the lawsuit.

“We want to ensure that the folly at City Hall does not find it’s way to the TDSB,” Matlow said.

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by Raveena Aulakh, Toronto Star

Toronto trustees voted last night to keep nine school pools open, thus saving all but seven of the 37 pools initially threatened with closure.

"It's a great day for these communities and people who care for pools," said trustee Josh Matlow, who called it a collective effort by citizens, the city and province.

The funds needed for the operating costs will come from permit revenues and the private sector.

"There are many seniors' groups, the Y and local aquatics clubs, which have shown interest in using the pools," Matlow said.

The nine pools need approximately $2 million in operating costs annually.

The board's aquatics working group has forecast more than $300,000 in permit fees for the school pools for the next few months and has said there's a reasonable chance the remaining costs will also be covered.

"The group demonstrated to the board that there is money already committed by permit holders and there's a projection for more since we have been receiving so many requests," Matlow said.

The nine pools are at Carleton Village, Central Technical School, Earl Grey, George Harvey Collegiate, Kensington Community School, Monarch Park, SATEC@W.A. Porter, Western Technical-Commercial School and Winona/McMurrich public schools.

Last month, a report prepared by the aquatics working group, headed by David Crombie, recommended that the board save the pools, which were facing closure.

The Toronto board has been scrambling to find funds to keep the pools open because it can't afford to keep them running.

Last spring, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced $12 million to $15 million to fix and maintain them.

The City of Toronto covers the full $6 million cost for 33 other school pools.

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The Toronto District School Board likely will not open an all-boys grade school this fall because many trustees oppose segregating the sexes in different buildings.

The board's planning and priorities committee voted Monday night to put the brakes on a controversial proposal by education director Chris Spence to open a boys' "leadership academy" this September from kindergarten to Grade 3 in a bid to boost boys' skills and lower their dropout rate.

By Maria Babbage (Canadian Press)

TORONTO — Nearly 600 Ontario schools will offer full-day kindergarten to about 35,000 four-and five-year-olds starting next fall, The Canadian Press has learned.

Premier Dalton McGuinty, who is moving ahead with the costly program despite Ontario's unprecedented deficit, will be in Chatham Tuesday to unveil details about the first phase of the plan that's expected to take five years to fully implement.

Public school won’t be redeveloped by TDSB without parents’ consent
Trustee says board committed to OK from residents or it won’t happen
By Kris Scheuer
(Written for Town Crier Dec. 23.)

Nothing raises alarm bells in a community like talks of redevelopment and school closings, so with both possibilities floated at Davisville PS panic set in.
Trustee Josh Matlow was concerned the Toronto District School Board was pairing a possible redevelopment of the site with an Accommodation Review Committee looking at everything from expansion to closure for Davisville.

Matlow’s gotten verbal and written commitments from the board that redevelopment at Davisville won’t happen without agreement from parents and residents. And the accommodation review process is more likely to result in expansion than closure of Davisville, Matlow tells the Town Crier.

Davisville redevelopment discussions
“We have met with parents and ratepayers. They have been told directly redevelopment won’t happen without their consent,” Matlow says Dec. 22.
Senior board staff, Director of Education Chris Spence, Matlow and members of the Oriole Park Ratepayers Association, South Eglinton Ratepayers Association and Davisville parent council met in late October and will meet again in early January and the months to come.
Matlow said TDSB staff won’t recommend redevelopment of the Davisville PS site to the board without a signed memorandum of understanding from parents and ratepayers associations.

by Don Peat, Toronto Sun

It will be sink or swim in the new year for the last nine Toronto public school pools left high and dry.

While Toronto District School Board trustees have come a long way from their original decision to axe 39 pools two years ago, nine pools could still have their plugs pulled this January.

Despite the 11th hour, trustees are still optimistic that those remaining pools can be saved in 2010.

Toronto public school students could have flag raising added to their school schedule early in 2010.

In yesterday's Sun, Toronto District School Board chairman Bruce Davis ran the idea up the flagpole -- to replace the damaged Canadian flags flying over city schools with the help of local MPs.

The plan also calls for students to be able to volunteer to raise and lower the flag at their schools, learning a valuable lesson in Maple Leaf pride in the process.