Open Letter to the Toronto District School Board Trustees

FREEDOM of Ontario’s Open Letter to the Toronto District School Board Trustees

Summary / TLDR

1. TDSB's policy-making around the Secondary Program Review and the two latest Policies has significant issues in historical, educational and legal aspects.
2. The particular TDSB officers' individual disqualifications are deeply concerning and it appears that they have been obsessed with the ideology of mega MEGA.
3. We have seen clear and unequivocal triple intent toward racially rigged education, and proclaim that any child(ren) of any race(s) must be entirely free from historical debt(s) owed by any race(s).
4. TDSB Trustees shall decline the two Policies for the public interest.

Note

This Open Letter was emailed to all twenty-five (25) TDSB Trustees and CCed to seven (7) TDSB officers in the afternoon of May 24, 2022.

 

 

May 24, 2022

 

Dear Trustees of the Toronto District School Board,

 

It has come to our attention that the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has been conducting the Secondary Program Review (the "Review"), and has proposed the Student Interest Programs Policy ("Policy 1") and the Out-of-Area Admissions Policy ("Policy 2"), seeking approval on May 25, 2022, following the implementation of the Peel District School Board (PDSB)'s Regional Learning Choice Programs (RLCP) (Elementary and Secondary). Both the TDSB's proposed Policy 1 and the PDSB's effective RLCP mandate board-wide "interest"-based random selection for admissions into both elementary and secondary programs.

 

By careful reviews, we have identified a few key issues in the TDSB's policy-making and have deep concerns, as laid out in our Heads-up Message to Ontario Citizens and Residents. We want to reiterate or elaborate on the following issues.

Omission of historical context

The policy-making has been entirely ignoring the historical context of Ontario public education, in particular, the invaluable open enrollment tradition, as shown in Origin of School Zoning and Historical Nexus of Open Enrollment in Ontario and Why Are There No Longer "Local Schools" in Ontario?

 

It is also resurrecting racial segregation, as shown in Brief History, Role and Resurrection of the "Coloured People" Provision.

Violation against fundamental educational principles

As remarked for the section "Freedom of autonomy" in the FREEDOM Declaration of Ontario (the "Declaration"), autonomous school or program setting and administration at the school level rather than at any school board level is significant for educational diversity. Such autonomy and diversity, combined with mobility and open enrollment, has offered a variety of admission opportunities, including "interest"-based admissions into a small number of schools or programs, and met a wide range of educational needs or demands from students and families in disparate situations or conditions. Centralizing specialized schools and programs, in particular their admission criteria and processes, would only eliminate such diversity and then kill individual educational choices to explore their full potentials.

 

Implementing board-wide "interest"-based random selection into specialized schools and programs, would be similarly irresponsible and destructive. Such a system-wide "idea" or enforcement is not new at all, and has always turned out failures or even disasters, in education and other social fields, as we will be submitting in an upcoming post How Would "Interest"-Based Programs End?

 

In summary, the major proposals in the Policies are largely anti-educational and anti-scientific, and if implemented, would make the systematic (and lifetime) damages and losses to the generations of students impacted by the Policies, irreversible.

Ignorance of legal basics

Illegality in the concerned Policies is utterly apparent, in light of the law, in particular of the Human Rights Instruments as cited in the Declaration.

 

The use of personal privacy information, including but not limited to address information and ethno-racial information, of students (and their families), by which "data" and "reports" have been generated about income estimations and ethno-racial distributions in (specialized) schools and programs as the basis for policy-making, is illegal too, as shown in How Does the School Board Become Super Bob?

 

Besides, we have pinpointed a significant number of particular wordings in both Policy 1 and Policy 2 that violate the statute law and/or the case law. Merely one example being demonstrated in this letter, Policy 2, Subsection 6.1.2 reads:

 

Each student who is eligible to attend school will have the right to attend the regular program in a designated school in accordance with this policy, based on the primary address of the student’s parents (or either parent) or of the student’s legal guardian. In the case of an adult student, the address where the student resides will determine the appropriate designated school.

 

This whole subsection is illegal:

1. Ontario courts have repeatedly ruled that a student may have a right to attend a school of a particular school board, but they do not have the right to attend a particular school, i.e., they do not have the right to attend their "home" school, the nearby school designated by their residency. Part of the rationale behind these rulings was detailed as early as in the Public Schools Act of 1891, explanatory notes for Subsection 9 (1): "The courts will not grant a mandamus to compel the admission of a child to a public school …" The TDSB officers and Legal Services shall do homework or consult with experts about (other) reason(s) behind the rulings.
2. An adult student, as the case may be, has the right to attend any secondary school in the school board of their residency, only subject to the accommodation restriction and to the possibility that they may be directed to continuing education. This is provisioned in, as of May 20, 2022, Section 37 of the Education Act.

 

Moreover, the TDSB likely has no powers at all with the concerned matters, as we will be presenting in an upcoming post TDSB's Lack of Powers (ultra vires) to Conduct the Secondary Program Review or Make the Policy Changes (the title is subject to change).

Individual disqualifications

In two documents we have obtained from parents of students in TDSB specialized programs, it is claimed that "…, members of [TDSB] Senior Leadership, Senior Management … [who have been making the policies the parents and the students complain about] have NO significant expertise or experience in [the relevant specialized discipline(s)] …"

 

Although we have no intent at this point to hold the majority of the TDSB officers who have been making the said Policies personally accountable, it shall be legitimate and justified to scrutinize their qualifications with such policy-making that has broad public impacts and has provoked plenty of controversies.

 

We have done digital digging via public information available online, regarding basic academic backgrounds of the five TDSB officers who have been pushing forward the said Policies, which we will be briefing (to show our respect to individuality and personal dignity, we will neither reveal digging details nor point to particular names except one) in an upcoming post What Do We Know About Them?

 

Our findings support the above claim, if the claim is limited to the five TDSB officers.

 

Besides the issues identified in the Heads-up Message and this Open Letter, we are particularly concerned with the possibility where the officers' devotions, passions and justifications to or of the Policies, were not only out of their professional incompetence and/or disqualifications, but also an untold revenge to the "system" by abusing their public powers, had they had no positive experiences in their past (elementary and/or secondary) education. We are reminding the public and the Trustees of such a possibility, which, if true, could be resulting in devastating consequences to the public interest and to the Ontario or Toronto public education system.

Obsession with ideology – mega MEGA

The TDSB policy-making around the Review has been largely, if not purely, for so-called "equity," a delusive and deceptive (as shown below) ideology, which we have termed as "mega MEGA" – the mega ideology of making "equity" great again. None of these policy changes is about material educational matters: for instance, identifying the educational weakness of schools and programs and proposing solutions, optimizing funding allocation, enhancing auditing and accountability, reviewing and updating curricula and courses, etc.

Dangerous racial rigging

As shown in Fight for Minorities, or Just Racial Rigging?, the TDSB officers' claim that the Policies are made for "marginalized" or "underrepresented" minorities have been self-negated by their own reasoning in the detailed paragraphs and tables in the reports of Policy 1 and Policy 2. The Policies are made more than likely for unscrupulous racial rigging.

 

In addition to racial segregation from residency-based restrictions, "interest"-based random selection would directly lead to racial quota or racial balancing. Yearly examinations of "students’ demographic data within centralized programs and schools," as claimed in Page 7 of Policy 1, would further enhance the TDSB's illegal and illegitimate power to make racial manipulations in education. Therefore, we have seen the clear and unequivocal triple intent toward racially rigged education, disguised by mega MEGA.

 

As remarked for the section "Freedom from race-based special measures" in the Declaration: "Whatever historical debt(s) any race(s) owe(s) to any other race(s), any child(ren) of any race(s) must be entirely free from such debt(s). In at least pre-higher education, we shall never see child(ren) of any particular race(s) while we respect their own racial identification(s), and we shall see only child(ren) of Ontario or Canada."

 

 

Although we believe that these Policies cannot survive legal challenges, and that they will, if approved, be overturned by the TDSB Trustees to be elected this October, we humbly and sincerely request you, incumbent Trustees, who have been elected by Toronto residents and shall execute your powers on behalf of parents and students, rather than being misguided by the TDSB officers and merely being rubber stamps, to resolutely decline both Policy 1 and Policy 2, for the public interest of all Ontario and Toronto students, over the particular interest of any specific ethno-racial group(s) with a fallacious ideology.

 

This Open Letter is also being published at FREEDOMofOntario.org.

 

 

Sincerely working in solidarity,

For Real Equitable Education with Diversity and Openness Movement (FREEDOM) of Ontario

 

Appendix

●     FREEDOM of Ontario's Heads-up Message to Ontario Citizens and Residents

●     Brief History of the "Coloured People" Provision in the Ontario School Act, Its Role in Racial Segregations, and Its Resurrection

●     How Does the School Board Become Super Bob and Want to "Rob"? TDSB's Illegal Use of Personal Privacy Information and Trespass into Individual Autonomy Spheres

●     Origin of School Zoning and Historical Nexus of Open Enrollment in Ontario Public Education

●     Fight for Minorities, or Just Racial Rigging?

●     Why Are There No Longer "Local Schools" in Ontario? Present Centralized Funding Model in Ontario Public Education, and Invalidity of School Zoning in the Education Act

Upcoming posts

The following upcoming posts are subject to changes, and the publishing order might be adjusted too:

●     How Would "Interest"-Based Programs End?

●     What Do We Know About Them?

●     Relationship Between the International Human Rights Law and Ontario's Domestic Judicial Proceedings

●     TDSB's Lack of Powers (ultra vires) to Conduct the Secondary Program Review or Make the Policy Changes

●     Roles and Powers of School Board Trustees, Appointment and Dismissal of a Director of Education, and Ontario Residents' Election Powers

●     Identify and Fight True Racists

●     Purposes and Missions of (Specialized) Schools and Educational Programs

●     Ontario Ministry of Education's Legal (and Moral) Obligation to Enforce the Social Union Framework Agreement in Education