HAS ANYTHING REALLY CHANGED - WRDSB ???

In my opinion the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) were an inherently corrupt body at the senior leadership level. I'm going back to the mid to late 1990s although it would seem likely that it didn't just happen overnight. I have thankfully not been involved with those manipulative, lying pieces of filth first hand since at least 1999. Their senior staff back then (Stone, Omand, Wideman etc.) sacrificed right and truth, transparency and accountability, parents and children on the alter of money, power, and union sweetheart deals between the employer (WRDSB) and the teachers' unions. Hey it wasn't money out of the Board's pocket that they kept throwing at teachers; that was taxpayers money. .................................................................................................... The biggest and baddest and eventually most public was the Ron Archer scandal. Terms like "passing the trash" became known as the Board's standard operating practice when they had a "bad" teacher. Do not discipline the particular teacher. Do not demote or fire them. That just upsets the cozy relationship with the unions. Nope, just pass them along to the next school in Waterloo Region reinforcing to teachers that they have a form of tenure unheard of anywhere else in Canada. In the case of Ron Archer (convicted pedophile teacher) he was given access to more and more minors with each transfer until finally one of the boys went to the Waterloo Regional Police who stepped up and laid criminal charges. Other ploys by the WRDSB included legal action, threats and banning of parents from school activities when parents with serious and legitimate complaints would not back down or roll over under pressure. Hence my use of the term "filth". They are paid by taxpayers and parents to both protect and educate children first, not to protect their cozy, self-serving relationship with the teachers' unions. .................................................................................................................... Now we come to the present day. Everybody who has been paying attention for the last several years knows that Waterloo Region and the WRDSB have an educational deficit in comparison with the rest of Ontario. For decades Luisa D"Amato has written about various issues, failures, (successes?) etc. in the K-W Record (i.e. Waterloo Region Record). Other reporters have as well including Jeff Outhit. Yesterday's Record was one more example with the title of "Region's high school graduation rates fall further behind". Wow that title has a lot of negative implications to it. Further reading indicates further problems with student achievement locally versus provincially. This achievement or lack thereof is in Math, Reading & Writing. Why do students within the purvue of the WRDSB fare worse than the provincial average? Why has this been occurring for many years? I unlike well paid Board staff and various consultants do not claim to be some kind of educational expert. I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree way back in 1974. My "poorest" educated child has a Masters degree in Biology and my "best" educated child has a PHd. in Biology. O.K. so I've only got two kids. The point is I have to ask the question: If a School Board in the past did not remotely have student achievement (& safety at school) as their first priorities, then would it not be likely that student achievement would not be as good as it could be? Secondly if twenty-five years later, student achievement is below par with the rest of the province then is there not still obviously a problem at the top? Is it the same problem or a different problem? Surely the bodies have changed but has the system? Has the culture of power and status been replaced with one promoting educational achievement or hasn't it? And lastly why was the WRDSB ever allowed by the Ontario Ministry of Education to have strayed so badly in the first place? Maybe I know the answer to that last one. Why would I remotely expect professional politicians and their appointees to do the right thing? For politicians it's all about avoiding and covering up problems, not solving them. The way to do that is to have like minded people in charge.